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.”

Author: Rae Longest

  • RELEASE DAY: HIDING CRACKED GLASS by Jay Cudney

    I could hardly wait for the sequel to Jay’s book, Watching Glass Shatter. I had followed the dysfunctional Glass family wondering about a strange letter the father had left behind. The new book, Hiding Cracked Glass also revolves around a letter, a threatening, blackmail letter. Unfortunately, the adresse’s name is blurred, so we are not…

  • Celebration of Color Challenge 2020: White

    I chose this book because it is the latest by my favorite author, Fiona Davis. Like all her other novels, this one features and explores an iconic NYC building. Did you know there was once an apartment in the “innards” of the NY Public library where the superintendent and his family could live? Davis moves…

  • MONDAY MUSINGS

    Originally posted on Literacy and Me: Today I’m thinking about poetry and the way it enters and enriches our lives. I don’t write poetry, but recently a former student shared her poetry with me, which was quite an honor. She has enough to compile a collection of poems, and wanted to know if the poems…

  • SATURDAY REVIEW

    Originally posted on Literacy and Me: Saturday is as good a day as any for a review, but this review fits this particular “space” well because it is a review of a book of poems, musings, and thoughtful meditations. It is also my first release “into the wild” of a Book Crossing book. Back when…

  • Found Poem: Eau de Parfum

    Found Poem: Eau de Parfum

    a deconstructed garden the secondary scents or quieter facets of floristry often overlooked: freshly cut stems, crushed leaves, rich soil as beautiful and evocative as the flower itself what lingers green hyacinth and dewy muguet mandarin, hyacinth, freesia molecules radiance sensuality ©2020, Jen Payne. Taken from the website description of Malin + Goetz perfume.

  • To Reconnect with Nature is Certain Cure

    To Reconnect with Nature is Certain Cure

    LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness 75 ESSAYS & POEMS by Branford, Connecticut Writer Jen Payne Nature – Balance – Spirituality – Connection 100 ORIGINAL COLOR PHOTOS of the Woods & Shoreline of Connecticut QUOTATIONS by Philosophers, Poets Naturalists, and Treasured Writers PREVIEW LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness NOW and…

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    Like TV programming in the 60s, Saturday mornings on this blog are reserved for kids. Today’s recommendation is for kids eight and up, as well as a few husbands who could learn a few things. LOL As the author says in her introduction. “We swear we’re not trying to turn you into a premature adult!…

  • CELEBRATING DEAR DIARY DAY WINNERS: JOURNALS

    There were five comments on this giveaway, people. One, Carla from Carla Loves Books said she had a nice journal that was given to her, that she hadn’t even used yet. LOL She was eliminated. Amy, a young blogger at Beloved Amy said how much she liked journaling and later replied to say her current…

  • Unsaid | Asmita Rajiv | Book Review

    Unsaid | Asmita Rajiv | Book Review

    Originally posted on Bookish Fame: Author: Asmita Rajiv Paperback: 194 pages Publisher: Independently Published (14 September 2020) Language: English We, humans, are a mess, and our heads a bundle of things – good and evil. Thoughts are not limited, with no boundaries set upon them; rather, they’d be out there in the wild. Can you…

  • Castellan the Black and his Wise Draconic Tips on a Mid-Life Crisis #BrainfluffCastellanthe Black #WiseDragonicTipsonaMid-LifeCrisis #PickyEaters

    Originally posted on Brainfluff: Fixes for a draconic mid-life crisis #2 – Challenge that unbearably cocky lord to a game of Who Can Dive Longest Without Opening His Wings. Ensure there is a lake or thick forest at the foot of the cliff just in case… Castellan the Black, mighty dragon warrior, features in my…