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.”

  • FRIDAY FIRST LINERS

    First Line Fridays, which I first encountered on “Carla Loves to Read,” and originally started on “Hoarding Books,” is a post I could relate to.  I love reading the first lines of a new book or sharing the first lines of one I’ve already begun. Here are the first few lines of Wendy Mills’ novel, All We Have Left:

    ” 2001/Alia

    Travis draws my face into his chest as the smoke engulfs us.

    The other tower fell, it fell straight down like a waterfall of concrete and steel, and, Oh God, help me, please help me, because is this one going to fall too?            “

    Turning to the back cover, I read, “A haunting and heart-wrenching story of two girls, two time periods, and the one event that changed their lives–and the world–forever.”

    I am soooo ready to read this YA novel.

     

  • HOORAY! HOORAY! TODAY IS NATIONAL LIMERICKS DAY

    Limericks have five lines rhyming aa/bb/a and follow iambic-pentameter rhythm. Here are some humorous classics:

    There was a young man from the city,

    Who met what he thought was a kitty.

    He gave it a pat,

    And said, “Nice little cat,”

    And we buried his clothes out of pity

     

    There was a young fellow from Leeds,

    Who swallowed a packet of seeds,

    It, at last, came to pass,

    He was covered with grass,

    And couldn’t sit down for the weeds!

     

    One of my college students two fall semesters ago wrote this one for Halloween:

    Some cold chill shivered my spine.

    Something cold, down in a straight line.

    I wasn’t alone,

    And not on my own,

    It was time for the beast to dine!

     

    Here are two from my junior high teaching days:

    There once was a teacher named Longest,

    Who thought that she was the strongest.

    She tried to lift ten,

    Then tried once again,

    And found out that she was the wrongest.

     

    In this class, there’s a great deal of reading,

    So to the teacher, we’re pleading,

    Please, no more tests,

    For, we’ve done our best!

    So tell us what else you are needing.

     

    Write a five-liner and post it in the comments section. It doesn’t have to be today.

    Happy Poeming!

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    Today’s (Saturday, May 11th) recommendations for kids are both “classics.” Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice is aimed at early readers or wannabee readers. It teaches children the months by using Sendak’s delightful illustrations, each month cleverly linked to something about chicken soup. For example, accompanying a sketch of a happy whale, spouting chicken soup from his blowhole, is the following poem,

    In November’s

    gusty gale

    I will flop

    my flippy tail,

    and spout hot soup.

    I’ll be a whale!

    Spouting once

    Spouting twice

    spouting chicken soup with rice.

    When I read Sendak’s “teaching poems,” I was reminded by my all-time-favorite aid for teaching “color poems” to students from grades five to graduate students at the university, Halistones and Halibut Bones, written by Mary O’Neill. O’Neill covers the colors of the spectrum, and my personal edition, published in 1989, is gorgeously illustrated by John Walker.

    When approaching a group/class of students, I ask them to shout out their favorite color. One poem at a time, I read the poem for each color. Each poem includes the taste, sight, sound, feel, and smell of the color described. The color red begins with ” What is red?/ Red is a sunset/ Blazy and Bright. / Red is feeling brave/ With all your might.” The poem on pink includes “…Pink is peachbloom/ Gauzy…frail/ The wind’s exquisite wedding veil.” My favorite line is “…The sound of black is / Boom! Boom! Boom! / Echoing in an empty room.”   The concluding poem states, “…For colors dance / And colors sing, / And colors laugh/ And colors cry—/ Turn off the light/ And colors die. / And they make you feel/ Every feeling there is/ From the grumpiest grump/ To the fizziest fizz./ And you and you and I/ Know well/ Each has a taste/ And each has a smell/ And each has a wonderful story to tell….”

    These books are special to the young children who hear or sound out the words as they read them, and to the parents and teachers who experience the books with each child or student affected by the poems contained within their pages.

     

  • THE NEWCOMERS: FINDING REFUGE, FRIENDSHIP AND HOPE IN AN AMERICAN CLASSROOM by Helen Thorpe

    Last year I read a newspaper review of Newcomers, purchased it, and from the beginning, Thorpe caught my attention. The scene was a classroom where the teacher approached a new student who did not understand English. “Hi, I’m Mr. Williams,”. the teacher said as he held out his hand in greeting.  “Hmmmmm, here’s a technique I can use with Basic ESL students where I volunteer,” I thought.

    The story unfolds describing Thorpe’s observation of the “Newcomers Class” of South High School in Denver, Colorado during the 2015-2016 school year. Thorpe wove anecdotes about 22 students ages 14-17 who had entered the States from war-torn, poverty-stricken, countries all over the globe into her book in an attention-keeping way. Because she made “home visits” to many of the students, she, and we, the readers, learn much about the culture and situations of each student visited.

    The author’s writing style is succinct and engaging. I could hardly wait to read another chapter to find out what the teacher and the author would do or say next to “handle the situations that arose in the classroom and in the students’ homes. Overall, this was a wonderful reading “experience” for me. I rate it a full five out of five.

     

  • THE 2019 AUDIOBOOKS​ CHALLENGE

    This challenge was issued by the bloggers at Hot Listens and The Caffeinated Reviewer.  I became aware of it on Carla Loves to Read, who posted that she was participating. Recently, I finished The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce. This author also wrote The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a book I loved so much I recommended it to our Third Tuesday book club.

    The Music Shop is set in 1988 London, and it was fun comparing the culture and situations to “my” 1988, here across the pond.  One thing is for sure, human nature and the complexities in relationships are universal and timeless!

    Frank, the shop’s owner, a burly, bearded, bear of a man, has a “gift” for “prescribing” (my term) just the right piece/selection of music someone needs; sometimes not what the customer thinks he wants. Because Frank has lost his first wife, he is terrified of real closeness/connectedness. When Elsa Brachman, a mysterious, attractive woman, with a German accent, enters his shop and promptly faints, neither recognizes the attraction they have for each other for what it is. These quirky characters’ relationship grows through the novel, as each makes bad choices and acts based on assumptions and miscommunications.

    The small shop which carries only vinyls in a CD society “attracts the lonely, the sleepless, and the adrift” which make up the cast of characters in this warm, often humorous, always “touching” story.  The narrator is spot-on and conveys each character vividly to the reader. One feels the “healing power of music” as the sometimes familiar-to-the-listener pieces of music are mentioned, as Frank matches them to customers. The listener indeed feels “healed” by the epilogue at the end. There is only one word which would describe the ending of this audiobook–joyful!

  • ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT BOOKS

    Continuing to read my”Books about Books” list inspired by Random House, I warily approached The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Knowing only that it was non-fiction, and was about the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library, all I could think of was all those books going up in smoke. Since I was attempting to read more non-fiction in 2019 anyway, I ordered The Library Book from my local library. The red, very “plain” book cover told me it was a “…riveting mix of true crime, history, biography, and immersion journalism.” (Booklist)

    Orlean, the “immersed journalist” of the book’s cover was touted as a writer for the New Yorker and other magazines. The statistics on the book jacket confirmed my original fear that it was an awful, awful occurrence–400,000 books totally destroyed and 700,000 more damaged.  Each chapter was headed up with copies of one or more old-fashioned card-catalog cards, each relevant to something within the chapter. The story immediately introduces the reader to Harry Peak, a part-time actor. His looks, his movements, and his thoughts immediately engage the reader’s curiosity. Library Book does include a brief history of libraries, but this information was never boring and often fascinated me with details the author must have enjoyed unearthing. Orlean takes the reader along on her interviews, her speculations then discoveries, and her frustrations in researching and writing the book, which was one of my favorite parts of reading the book.

    The investigation, the court snafus, the intricacy of the actual event that took place on April 28, 1986, supplies fascinating reading to book-a-holics and library fans like me.

  • Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    “What shall I do with all my books?” was the question; and the answer , “Read them sobered the questioner.”

    Winston Churchill

    On Saturdays I usually post only “Saturday Mornings for Kids” on PWR (Powerful Women Readers), but today I ran across a quote attributed to Winston Churchill, a man of letters and a man of books, as well as a man of history.

    But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them, and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on the shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If…

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  • Alphabet Challenge Update, READING WITH PATRICK

    A friend gave me Reading with Patrick, a memoir by Michelle Kuo, a few months ago. I have been saving it for the “R” in the Alphabet Challenge a fellow blogger and I have taken on. Describing the “remarkable literary and political awakening” of Patrick Browning, Kuo’s student, the book makes the reader think about race and the lack of justice for a large portion of America’s population.

    Kuo met Patrick when she was a volunteer with “Teach for America”( in 2004) in his home town, Helena, Arkansas, located in what was then one of the poorest counties in the U.S. She led Patrick through his journey of discovery as his high school English teacher. She “saw” him and saw his potential. The descriptions of their interactions and the building of their relationship were familiar to any teacher who has “been there” and cared.  As Patrick grows in his understanding of poetry, the book becomes “a love letter to literature.” It is also a “riveting,” “inspiring testimony to the transformative power of reading.” What about this premise would not make my teacher’s heart go “pitty-pat”?

    After going on to law school, Kuo returned to Helena to find that Patrick was in jail, serving an “undetermined” length of years for murder.  Patrick describes the murder as “an accident,” and Kuo finds his case has been constantly mishandled, delayed, overlooked and tightly bound up in bureaucracy and red tape. While waiting for hearings and various delays, Kuo begins to teach Patrick again, only to find he had reverted to the pathetically poor reader he was when she first met him years ago. Visiting Patrick in jail as often as permitted for over seven months, Kuo helps Patrick make progress, both in his awareness of literature and of himself as well.

    The story does not have a “happily-ever-after-ending,” but a satisfactory one, and the “read” was definitely worth investing my valuable reading time in. I highly recommend this book.

     

     

     

  • An April Farewell

    Farewell to April and National Poetry Month. My goals for the month were to do something related to poetry each day and to read Jen Payne’s Evidence of Flossing, an outstanding collection of poems accompanied by powerful, sometimes whimsical, always meaningful photos.

    Technically, I did not completely accomplish either goal, for I did not “do something poetic” every day, nor did I finish Jen’s book.  Actually, I shall never be “finished” with that particular collection of poems. What I did do was:

    • Take free books of dinosaur poems (see post “HOORAY!!! National Poetry Month April 2019” on my blog ( http://literarylessons.wordpress.com ) to Mrs. V’s class at the school where I volunteer as the culmination of a lesson on dinosaurs.
    • Post a “Heads Up…” to alert readers to the beginning of National Poetry Month on PWR
    • Post on PWR important dates to observe literacy during the month (Killing Two Birds with One Stone)
    • Make my Thursday Thoughts post on PWR April 12th thoughts about poetry
    • Post on April 23rd “Continuing to Celebrate National Poetry Month”  on PWR
    • Place signs on my Little Free Library announcing April as National Poetry Month (I write “signs” because weather necessitated more than one sign, and one sign even had a rhinestone border!)
    • Friday, April 12th was my “Celebration of Literacy “event at our local library, complete with two free raffled Easter and Spring baskets; refreshments; and “stations” around the room. There were posters and sign up information for two book clubs in our town, a table on Literacy Projects where “customers” could watch one of my Advanced Writing students read to a kindergarten class via my laptop, and read about what they could do to advance literacy in our town.  We gave away about sixty books complete with tote bags to carry them in, then donated “leftovers” to the Alvin Library League to sell to supplement unbudgeted items for the library. Most importantly, I met and received contact numbers of some really nice people who expressed a love of books and reading.

    I am still reading, meditating on and incorporating into my daily walk the poems in Jennifer A. Payne’s Evidence of Flossing. I leave it on the bedside table to pick up and read whenever I need soothing, comfort, or sometimes–a challenge.

    I hope you enjoyed National Poetry Month, and I hope my personal celebration of it will be even more enjoyable. In the meantime, just keep reading–POETRY.

  • THE MASTERPIECE by Fiona Davis: A Review

    I believe Davis’s third novel, The Masterpiece, published last year, is her best yet. It deals with the “glamorous” Art School, built above Grand Central Terminal (not Grand Central Station; this is not a station where the trains pass by, but an end-of-the-line, stopping point from which trains begin their next “run.” ) The descriptions of the glamorous high-end NYC society types kept this “New York-o-phile” turning pages.

    As is her norm, thus far, Davis juggles two stories at once. One is the 1928 struggles and successes of Clara Darden, the first female instructor at the art school, teaching Illustration Techniques as featured in catalogs, newspaper and magazine ads of the day. Considered “not REAL art” by Clara’s colleagues, her illustrations lead to popularity, a whirlwind courtship, acceptance into high society, and eventually to her unexplained disappearance in 1931. Many theories have surfaced over the years, but the author’s imagined solution to the “mystery” of Darden’s disappearance is awesomely creative.  I could never have come up with such an imaginative scenario. My kudos to the author.

    Virginia Clay, employed by the Terminal in 1974 discovers a sketch with a painting on the back and becomes Darden’s fascinated fan. She also discovers that the dangerous and dilapidated structure has a lawsuit pending to save the historic structure from destruction. Recently divorced and hiding her shameful “secret” mastectomy, Virginia and Ruby, her college-age daughter, face struggle after struggle with no help from anyone. However, they have their own determination to overcome. Here, Ruby is her mother’s daughter. While carrying out an errand, Virginia stumbles upon the deserted art school, setting off her curiosity and an urge to research the terminal’s rich history.  Here is where Davis shines–her meticulous research, her detailed (but never boring) descriptions which often yield a clue or further the plot, keep the reader enthralled as they envision the faded glory and splendor of the old landmark.

    I enjoyed reading this novel more than any other novel I’ve read so far in 2019. I can hardly wait to read Fiona Davis’ Chelsea Girls, due out this summer.