RAE’S READS

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This year (2025) finds me with 53 years of teaching “under my belt.” I have taught all levels from pre-K “(library lady” or “book lady”–volunteer) to juniors, seniors, and graduate students enrolled in my Advanced Writing class at the university where I have just completed 34 years. My first paying teaching job was junior high, and I spent 13 years with ages 12-13, the “difficult years.” I had some of the “funnest” experiences with this age group. When I was no longer the “young, fun teacher,” I taught in an elementary school setting before sixth graders went on to junior high, teaching language arts blocs, an assignment that was a “dream-fit” for me. After completing graduate school in my 40s, I went on to community college, then university teaching. This past fall I accepted a part-time teaching job at Apogee Gulf Coast Schools in its first year at the Alvin campus. After my Better Half died n 2022, I achieved a lifelong dream: opening a bookstore of my own, Rae’s Reads. A year later, I sold the house we had lived in for 47 years and moved into the bookstore. My goal is to circulate and repurpose books. Just as teaching is “in my blood,” so is a passion for reading, writing, libraries, and everything bookish. This blog will be open to anyone who loves books, promotes literacy and wants to “come out and play.”

SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

Today’s (Saturday, May 11th) recommendations for kids are both “classics.” Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice is aimed at early readers or wannabee readers. It teaches children the months by using Sendak’s delightful illustrations, each month cleverly linked to something about chicken soup. For example, accompanying a sketch of a happy whale, spouting chicken soup from his blowhole, is the following poem,

In November’s

gusty gale

I will flop

my flippy tail,

and spout hot soup.

I’ll be a whale!

Spouting once

Spouting twice

spouting chicken soup with rice.

When I read Sendak’s “teaching poems,” I was reminded by my all-time-favorite aid for teaching “color poems” to students from grades five to graduate students at the university, Halistones and Halibut Bones, written by Mary O’Neill. O’Neill covers the colors of the spectrum, and my personal edition, published in 1989, is gorgeously illustrated by John Walker.

When approaching a group/class of students, I ask them to shout out their favorite color. One poem at a time, I read the poem for each color. Each poem includes the taste, sight, sound, feel, and smell of the color described. The color red begins with ” What is red?/ Red is a sunset/ Blazy and Bright. / Red is feeling brave/ With all your might.” The poem on pink includes “…Pink is peachbloom/ Gauzy…frail/ The wind’s exquisite wedding veil.” My favorite line is “…The sound of black is / Boom! Boom! Boom! / Echoing in an empty room.”   The concluding poem states, “…For colors dance / And colors sing, / And colors laugh/ And colors cry—/ Turn off the light/ And colors die. / And they make you feel/ Every feeling there is/ From the grumpiest grump/ To the fizziest fizz./ And you and you and I/ Know well/ Each has a taste/ And each has a smell/ And each has a wonderful story to tell….”

These books are special to the young children who hear or sound out the words as they read them, and to the parents and teachers who experience the books with each child or student affected by the poems contained within their pages.

 

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2 responses to “SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS”

  1. ksbeth Avatar
    ksbeth

    Wonderful suggestions

    Liked by 1 person

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  2. Herminia Avatar
    Herminia

    Ooo interesting. Thanks for sharing!

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