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.”

  • Sunday (Evening) Post

    When I first started Sunday (Evening) Post, I wrote, “I follow a blogger (Brainfluff) who has a post feature that is simply delightful and engaging, so I am posting my Sunday (Evening) Post here:” Basically, following Sarah’s lead, I posted WHAT I am reading/ WHAT I have finished/ and WHAT I’ve seen (TV, films, etc.) along with an update on the past week’s activities.

    This past week, I have FINISHED: You Can Do Anything: The Surprise Power of the ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Degree by George Anders (2017). This book was a life-changer for me.  Not only did it persuade me I still had relevant skills in my current employment search (having majored in Literature in grad school), but now I am converting my copious notes into a brief to be read by my students in the fall.  YES, you read that correctly! I called to see if I could get my old job, teaching Advanced Writing back, and received an email back that began with 5 yesses”!  Not only that, but I can write my own curriculum, as we are looking for a section where Art majors will be successful and motivated to attend. (I am sure there will be more, much more on this later.)

    I am CONTINUING to read Art for Dummies Hahaha–see where that came from? The only art class I took as an undergrad was Art Appreciation, part 2, which covered from the Byzantine period through the Italian Renaissance.  It was a wonderful course; and perhaps if I tell the art students (the other students will be from a variety of majors as was always the case) they need to be able to write appeals to their patrons for financial support and to owners of galleries asking for a show, the students will find the assignments relevant and helpful. I am extremely excited and very motivated myself!

    Also, I CONTINUE the Alphabet Challenge, halfway through “Z”, chosen for the future exploration of “Books about Books,” The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon (remember I cheated a bit and went by author instead of title.). I am three-fourths of the way through  Unbecoming, a novel by Rebecca Scherm, then since my book club selection covered “V,” I will have only “W,” “X,” and “Y” to read by year’s end.

    I decided it was time to get back to good sci-fi, so I am almost one third into The Sparrow, a fantastic book I put on my Kindle ages ago, making quite a list under “CONTINUING.” I am right in the middle of several books.

    I am LOOKING FORWARD to reading What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon, the R.A.T. Pack (Senior Citizen’s) book club selection for July and a return to my pledge to read more non-fiction with Helen Thorpe’s Just Like Us, a journalist’s account of “four Mexican girls coming of age in America.” I enjoyed Thorpe’s Newcomers at the beginning of the year, and am glad to be returning to an author I respect and admire very much.

    This is too long a post already, so I will save what I have “viewed” for another time. Right now I have to find my reading glasses and get busy!

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    With the thought that kids from the early days of TV and on into the 60s often watched cartoons on TV on Saturday mornings while parents tried to go back to sleep, this post gives recommendations for books kids might be equally occupied with.

    Is Your Mama a Llama,  written by Deborah Guarino and illustrated by Steven Kellog, is today’s selection/recommendation.

    A baby llama asks his animal friends, each in his turn, “Is your mama a llama”? Each animal, a bat, a gosling, a calf, a seal, a kangaroo give a fact about their mamas, leading the baby llama to conclude none of the animals’ mamas are llamas. At the end, he finds whose mama is a llama–his own! The ending picture of the baby llama snuggled up against his mama llama gives the very young reader a sense of closure and security.  The repetition of the question, “Is your mama a llama”? is appealing to the very young as is the rhythm of the words. There is a loose rhyme scheme as well, making this a very good go-to-sleep-now story.

  • FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

    Friday Firstliners or First Line Fridays was started by “Hoarding Books” and encourages readers to copy in the first line or first few lines of a book they are currently reading or intended to read soon.

    My choice for this meme is Helen Thorpe’s Just Like Us, a non-fiction book which discovers what coming of age in America is like for Mexican girls.

    “Three-quarters of the way through her final year of high school, Marisela Benavidez ran into a problem.  Her father wanted to attend her senior prom.”

    If that doesn’t catch the YA audience of Latinas, nothing will, but actually, judging from some university students’ stories of their fathers’ overprotectiveness, this is not unusual!

    I hope to start this book this coming weekend.

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    This thank you to Sarah of “Brainfluff” who first introduced me to “The Purple Booker” ‘s meme goes out on Tuesday, June 25th, a rainy day on the Texas Gulf Coast. At least with the thunderstorms and rain, the “feels like” temperatures are no longer 111degrees. “Feels like” temps factor in the humidity, for which we are notorious. A UK visitor to an author friend of mine stated, “Wow, I feel like I just stepped into a Turkish Steam Bath,” upon deplaning, walked across the tarmac, and upon being seated in her waiting car, he promptly fainted.

    Today’s teaser is from You Can Do Anything by George Anders. The book explains the value (Yes, there is one.) of a Liberal Arts Degree in today’s techie world. He quotes C.P. Snow’s essay, “The Two Cultures” in chapter five as follows: “…Each group had a curious distorted image of the other based on dangerous misinterpretations. People who understood the Second Law of Thermodynamics had no idea what Shakespeare had to offer and vice versa.”  Anders goes on to suggest that we look for jobs based on our ability to “…present data to people who aren’t data people.” He cites the high demand for Plain English and continues, “That means explaining things simply and creating trust by making other people feel smart. ” (chapter 5)

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    Today’s selection is a delightfully illustrated story, Juana and Lucas by Juana Medina. It won the Pura Belpre Award and was a 2019 publication.  The author, who was born and grew up in Bogota, Columbia, often was reprimanded in school for drawing cartoons of her teachers. This book, however, is a pure delight of cartoons, lovingly drawn and labeled of Juana and her dog, Lucas. The plot alone is engaging when Juana must learn a very hard language–English in order to earn the reward of going to *SPACELAND* (the equivalent of Disney World).  She describes her difficulties to her abuelo, (grandfather) “No matter how hard I try, there’s always more to learn and to practice. It all seems so pointless. When it comes to the English, it never seems to get any easier.”

    Will Juana earn her trip? Will she get over her dislike of learning English?

    A second book, also published in 2019, Juana and Lucas: Big Problemas, finds Juana dealing with life-problems bigger than learning English. Her mother has a new friend, Luis, who likes her mom and maybe Juana very much. Will Luis want to take her father’s place in Juana’s heart? Will she have to leave Bogota, the only home she has ever known? How will Lucas adjust if they have to move?

    This is a real story about real problems faced by a real girl who has a real friend in her loyal dog.  Read this new author and enjoy, as I did, meeting Juana and her dog, Lucas.

  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    This fascinating meme, hosted by “Hoarding Books” asks readers to simply copy the first line or lines of a book, then ask their readers to state whether they would choose/buy that book based on its first line.

    Here is my Friday Firstliner from John Ortberg’s YA version of ME, the me I want to be:

    After asking the typically-teen question, “Why did God make me?”, Ortberg opens with,

    “One week it was all the rage on Facebook to replace your profile picture with the photo of a celebrity who could be your double…I noticed a lot of people chose extremely attractive celebrities for them[selves] and claimed people say they look just like them. I wondered if some of those people might need contact lenses.”

    Ortberg’s humor and self-depreciation is a delight to read.  Next to Max Lucado, Ortberg is my favorite inspirational author.

  • A WEEK OF WISDOM, DAY #7

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    One of the Lifetime goals I set for reading this past January (2019) was to read all of Anne Lamott’s writings. Recently I dipped into her 2018 collection, Almost Everything, Notes on Hope. Interestingly enough one thing Lamott has hope about is Death. In Chapter Eight, “In the Garden,” this is expressed by the following as she discusses the loss of her father, Ken Lamott.

    “…He was fifty-five. Then a long cognitive deterioration, but pain free, thanks to early hospice. Then poof. Gone.

    He was so gone. Dead people look universal–the gaping mouth and locked jaw. Where was the angelic expression of sweet release? The flesh had fallen away, all that life and brilliance transformed into a beaky, craggy face. We closed his eyes and mouth, and then there was something sleepy and peaceful in his face, yet there was also a grotesque finality.”

    Although I have seen many relatives…

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  • AN IMPRESSIVE POETRY COLLECTION: SUCH IS LIFE, A Review

    Back in April, I was being very self-congratulatory about reading a volume of poetry, Evidence of Flossing, as part of my celebration of National Poetry Month.  It was such a pleasurable experience that I purchased a copy of another collection of poems recommended by a blogging friend, Khyati Gautam, a young writer with great potential.  She posted an interview with poet, Rahul Nigam, on her blog, “Bookish Fame.” I think the picture of the cover, a young child, hands clasped behind his back, kicking with his left foot at a puddle appealed to me as a “poetic” image. The collection’s title is Such Is Life, and indeed, the poems are such as life is made up of.

    In one of the later sections, the poet explores the definition and writing of poetry as a literary form:

    POETRY

    The fusion of words to create a statement, /Their coming together in search of a meaning,/ The interaction to prove their existence./ One of the poet’s age old inheritance.

     

    Dwelling in the claustrophobic foundation of the identity/ Thrust upon them by the poet./ /Still striving not to lose their individuality.

     

    The merger of the interior with the exterior,/ The conversation eavesdropped by the mind.

     

    The iceberg of feelings/ Touched by the heat of happenings/ Melts.

     

    Emotions find expression, Silence finds speech,/ And abstractness evolves into reality.

     

    The stream oozes out of the pen/ And the naked white paper/ Is now clothed with someone’s scribbles.

     

    A word here,/ A word there,/  Webbing them together/ To constitute/ What is called Poetry.

     

    The juggling of words by the poet,/ The tuning of the orchestra/ To attain a harmony/ Music being created note by note/ And the symphony of waves all around.

     

    The perfect fusion…/ The music,/ The romance,/  The music of romance.

     

    The silence,/ The loneliness,/ The silence of loneliness.

     

    The agony./ The pain,/ The agony of pain.

     

    The death,/ The soul, /The dead soul.

     

    And it goes on…

     

    What is poetry?/ If not you and me?

     

    Our tears,/ our smiles,/ Our anger,/ our guilt,/ Our accomplishments,/ our failure, Our life,/ our death,/ Spread all over a sheet of paper.

     

    You, /Me,/ We… The fusion of words.

    Other poems in the edition are equally engaging, especially the love poems and the “everyday” ones as well. I highly recommend Such Is Life as a base from which to broaden one’s appreciation and respect of poetry.

     

     

     

     

     

  • A WEEK OF WISDOM, DAY #5

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    An excellent thought for a Sunday evening written by George Bernard Shaw,

    “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. Life is a splendid torch, which I hold for a moment. And I want to make it burn brightly, before I hand it off to future generations.”

    Use me, Lord to accomplish Thy purposes and to better this good world You have given me.

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  • A WEEK OF WISDOM #4, Saturday Edition

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    Today’s wise words come from a favorite novel of most Americans, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. It deals with courage and/or the lack of it,

    “Real courage is when you know you’re licked, before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

    Another unknown source says, “You haven’t failed until you give up.”

    And, finally, this advice from the actor Henry Fonda, “Whether you think you can’t or think you can, you’re right.”

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