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 ON SUNDAY MORNING

    Yesterday got away from me. Here I have been reading over one hundred middle grade (5th, 6th, 7th & 8th) books for a new project, and I didn’t post a single recommendation of a middle grades book to read. My bad. Here, a day late are some EXCELLENT reads for kids in 5th grade and junior high. They are all 2019 publications.

    Each Tiny Spark by Pablo Cartaya–This story about Emilia Rosa (NOT Emi Rose as her nemesis, Clarissa, insists on)  has “Inattentive ADH,” a condition which limits her ability to focus. She has special considerations in school, but still struggles at times. Especially challenging is Mr. Richt’s social studies project, a tour guide for her home town. Instead of touting the glories of Merryville, Emilia focuses on how the town is divided along class lines, where people from the “wrong side of the track” are treated differently. The resources list (help for veterans, civil rights laws and issues, etc.) provided at the end is very helpful.

    Planet Earth Is Blue by Nicole Panteleakos introduces Nova, a 13 year old Asburger’s , middle school student who is obsessessed with the stars. When she learns that the junior high she will attend has a planetarium, she is ecstatic. She is anxiously awaiting the event of the Challenger Flight, which of course, ends in tragedy and reveals to Nova a personal tragedy if her own. Interestingly enough the author is on the spectrum, and thus offers an insider’s look into the autistic mind.

    The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin describes how someone “becomes legend.” Caitlyn, the “new girl” at a small, private school in Vermont , must deal with not only being new to a class that has been together since kindergarten, but with the mystery of who in the world was the glorious, missing student, Paulie Fink. I will review this book at a later date on PWR.

    All of these books were a delight to me, and adult, because they included inclusion, bullying, ethnic differences, “keeping up appearances” and so much more than “just” a good plot. Characterization on these three and the development of it due to overcoming obstacles made these three books the deliverers of life lessons middle schoolers will not soon forget. All three receive 5 out of 5 stars.

     

  • There’s self-respect in making things, says poet Sharon Olds QUOTES FOR WRITERS

    There’s self-respect in making things, says poet Sharon Olds QUOTES FOR WRITERS

    bridget whelan's avatarBRIDGET WHELAN writer

    Writing or making anything — a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake — has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.
    Sharon Olds

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  • Friday Firstliners

    First Line Fridays asks the reader to “tempt’ another reader to add the book they are currently reading to their TBR Lists/folders/ shelves. I have found several of my favorite reads in just this way. All you have to do is read the author’s “hook,” the first sentence or couple of sentences.

    My Firstlines today are from Goodbye Mr. Spalding, a fabulous middle school novel by Jennifer Robin Barr and concerns all things baseball history/baseball.

    “Jimmie Foxx is definitely dead. I can tell by the way his glassy eyes are staring at me through the fishbowl.”

    Jimmie Fox, the fish, is named for Jimmy Frank’s favorite ball player. Jimmy’s life revolves around baseball. I have read half to three-fourths of the book, and at the moment the human Jimmie Foxx is hospitalized for an injury from the game. I am hoping the first line is not a foreshadowing of the man’s demise! LOL

  • FRIDAY FIRST LINERS

    “First Line Fridays is hosted by Hoarding Books. The blogger asks that one put the first

    IMG_0648.JPG or a couple of lines of a book you are reading down, and I am asking for you to comment on whether you would read this book, judging from just that first line or so.

    My First Line Friday is from Wendy S. Swore’s middle school book, A Monster Like Me:

    “You’d think monsters would have their own grocery store, but they don’t. They walk around with a cart the same as regular people and keep the monster part hidden inside where no one can see it.”

  • BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS CHALLENGE CONTINUED

    Recently I read and reviewed The Haunted Bookstore by Christopher Morely, a classic from WWII days. It led me to the audiobook of Morely’s previous book, Parnassus on Wheels. Parnassius tells the story of Roger Mifflin, bookstore owner extraordinaire, before his bookstore days and how he met and courted Mrs. Mifflin. Like a tinker of those days, Mifflin traveled from town to town, selling used books instead of pots and pans, his gaudy cart pulled by a decrepit old nag, Pegasus. [His] “delight in books and authors is infectious.”

    When he visits a local author and “gentleman farmer,” he finds the author off gathering material for his latest book and the author’s sister capably running the farm in his absence. Parnassus is the story of HER adventure.  She is a delightful recently-turned “feminist”–from the perspective of the early 1900s. She buys Parnassus on Wheels and travels (unescorted) with Mifflin as her passenger and guide, and the rest is a hilarious narrative that brings together the two perfectly matched individuals whom we meet as a couple in The Haunted Bookstore.

    I seldom use the word “quaint” when I describe a book, but this lovely pair, Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookstore are just that–and a darned fine read!

  • THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY by Heidi W. Durrow: A Review

    This 2010 publication won the Bellwether Prize for fiction (an award featuring social justice) that year. It could be categorized as a YA novel, but it had great appeal to me as an adult reader. The heroine, Rachel, whose unusual blue eyes are often mentioned, is the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I.

    After the family tragedy that happened in Chicago, which defines the rest of her life, she goes to live with her grandmother (on her father’s side) in Portland. The novel deals with the issue of whether Rachel is “black” or “white”–she doesn’t fit in with either. A parallel story finds Jamie, later known as “Bricks,” who lived in the apartment projects where Rachel’s family “ended,” leaving her the only survivor. Jamie is a witness to the tragic event.

    The story unfolds, layer by layer, with anecdotes about each of the main characters alternately, until they meet serendipitously near the end, and Jamie helps Rachel find her identity–herself.  Rachel’s quest and ability to overcome great loss testify as to the strength of her character and her tenaciousness. Jamie is also an overcomer, and the adding of his strength to Rachel’s allows the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, which is the plot, to fit together in a satisfying way.  Durrow writes a poignant story which makes the reader sigh as she reads the last words.

  • When It’s Time To Commit #CoverReveal for Marriage Unarranged

    Scroll all the way down for cover. This one is going to be a great debut novel. Ritu is a fine poet and a great woman/mother/teacher/writer I, for one, plan to get her book.

    Ritu's avatarRitu Bhathal

    Photo Credit Kimberley Farmer. Banner produced on Canva

    It’s been a while, and for that, I apologise, my dear readers.

    I haven’t been wallowing in a puddle of misery because I got another rejection.

    Nothing like that. Unfortunately it has been my health that has held me back from progessing further.

    You see, I made a decision to become an Indie Author, and self publish my baby!

    And, in order to self publish, there are a few things that need to be done.

    • Finish editing my book – so close, I am just in the throes of discovering my crutch words… cringe-worthy!
    • Sending it to my editor for that final look over
    • Formatting the text for paperback as well as e-book
    • Writing the blurb
    • Writing acknowledgements, etc. for inside the book
    • Setting a publication date
    • Designing a cover

    Wait. What?

    I actually have an item on the list that I…

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  • When It’s Time To Commit #CoverReveal for Marriage Unarranged – Ritu Bhathal

    When It’s Time To Commit #CoverReveal for Marriage Unarranged – Ritu Bhathal

    My blogging friend’s first novel will be out soon!#3

  • NOVEMBER 15th, “I Love to Write Day”

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    According to Bookbuzz’s Literary Calendar, today marks a nationally obderved “I Love to Write Day.” Instead of telling readers why I love to write (which I do, but I love to read so, so much more), I am opening this window for followers/visitors/readers to explain and tell WHY they love to write. Please leave a comment below.

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  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    Hoarding Books hosts a meme where bloggers/readers copy the first line of a book they are reading to give a “feel” for what the book is about. Can one decide from the first line whether she/he wants to read the book? Read my Friday Firstliner from Kate DiCamillo’s Beverly, Right Here:

    “Buddy died, and Beverly buried him, and then she set off toward Lake Clara.  She went the back way, through the orange groves…she saw her cousin Joe Travis…[who was] nineteen years old. He had red hair and a tiny little red beard and a red Camaro…Beverly didn’t like him all that much.”

    This is not just the story of a runaway. It is an excellent character study set in a complex plot with poignant relationships at stake. YA author DiCamillo is well known by readers everywhere in grades 5- high school, and doesn’t disappoint in this excellent tale.