RAE’S READS

recent posts

about

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.”

SLENT READNG BOOK CLUB AND A BOOK I FINISHED AT THE MEETNG

Tonight for Thursday Night Girl’s Night at Rae’s Reads, my bookstore and my home, we had a meeting of the “Silent Reading Book Club.” Seven were in attendance , just the right number to fill the Conversation Area of the front

room.

We were asked to come at five-ish, and all who were coming were n place by 5:15. We all got our drinks. Our choices were Vietnamese coffee, American coffee, Decaf or hot tea from the Republic of Tea, a mixture of Earl Grey and Elderberry tea. It was delicious, and didn’t even need sweetener or sugar.

We read silently for fifty minutes, then broke for three kids of Cookies, cheese and crackers and refills on drinks. I finished Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson, an author I’ve read before.

Here are some of the highlights of this wonderful book:

“What’s So Good about Being a Book Girl ?

That is the question at the heart of the book, and my answer comes from being raised as a book girl myself and as I tell the story of my own reading life, the one I yearn to give my daughter as she opens her story in the world. Gifts of learning and wonder, of hope renewed, of the capacity to ponder, of the will to act–those are just a few of the gifts to be explored in the chapters to come as we consider the particular goodness of being a book girl.”

“…you will find a unique kind of fellowship on the pages of Book Girl … There’s a fellowship of the book girls waiting for your presence, and every page here is my way of passing along the gift of reading that I received by pure grace. I can’t wait to set it in your hands. Are you a book girl who struggles to find the time to read? Goodness, my friend, we all understand that dilemma in the busy world. Were you once a book girl but seem to have lost your reading stride somewhere along the way? I hope you will remember afresh the joy and wisdom that wait to form you in the books that follow… (reading lists are given)…or do you need some courage to keep fighting the small battles of the everyday? Then pull up a chair, brew a cup of tea, and Join the fellowship here as we read our way back to beauty and courage, to laughter and strength, to life in its fullest grace.”

Isn’t this just about the loveliest writing you’ve ever read?

RAE 1/11/23

Posted in

Leave a comment