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.”

“CELEBRATION OF COLOR” update

I don’t know how it happened so quickly, but my personal challenge, “Celebration of Color” is finished. I had set no time to finish because I started it so late in 2020, August 24,2020. But, this morning I read the last book. Here is what I have read for this challenge since August:

  1. RED The Light Years (reviewed last summer)
  2. BLUE The Dalai Lama’s Cat (also reviewed)
  3. YELLOW The Austin Escape (reviewed)
  4. WHITE The Lions of Fifth Avenue (by my favorite author and friend, Fiona Davis) I liked this one so much, I asked my Third Tuesday Book Club to read it, and they enjoyed it too. (also reviewed)
  5. BLACK Vesper Flights one of the few audiobooks and the first non-fiction book of the challenge (reviewed)
  6. GREEN Tell Me Why, my first Aussie Noir, which I won in a blogger’s giveaway (reviewed)
  7. ORANGE Dear Mr. Knightley (reviewed as well)
  8. PINK Backward and in Heels another non-fiction book (also reviewed)
  9. PURPLE Klaws a gift from a friend (read on my Kindle)
  10. BROWN home body not the only book of poetry I read during this time, but my favorite (reviewed)
  11. A BOOK WITH THE WORD “COLOR’ IN THE TITLE Black is a Rainbow Color, written by Angela Joy; illustrated by Ekua Holmes
This is a book you EXPERIENCE, not just read. It is for children, but this adult enjoyed it so much, she ordered a copy to give as a gift to another adult.

12. A BOOK BY AN AUTHOR OF COLOR Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

As with so many books, I saw this book first on the Today Show on NBC as a “Jenna’s Book Club” pick


This book is true “literary fiction,” which is my favorite genre, and one which is difficult to define. “Gifty,” the protagonist is a complex character, and the author makes us “feel” all of her complex emotions. She is a neuroscientist doing research on the brain, specifically seeking for the answers to what causes addiction and depression. Her brother, and her mother, and, in retrospect, her father all deal with these issues. One critic says, Gifty “turns to the hard sciences to deal with her family’s loss.” Her Ghanaian family has relocated in Alabama, finding life in a new place challenging; and thus, is an immigrant story as well.

The novel is “powerful, raw, intimate,” and deals also with faith and the loss of it.

That’s it! All twelve books in my “Celebration of Color Challenge…”

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2 responses to ““CELEBRATION OF COLOR” update”

  1. Deb Nance at Readerbuzz Avatar
    Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

    Congratulations on finishing your challenge. I have a copy of Transcendent Kingdom here (from Inprint) but, like so many other good novels, I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

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    1. Rae Longest Avatar
      Rae Longest

      It’s worth your time.

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