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.”

  • GUEST POST BY MARIA

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    This post introduces a budding author, Maria, who is in Ms. Villarreal’s morning language arts bloc, a first grade bi-lingual class. She is an engaging young lady who does well in both reading and writing. She is a help to her parents and teachers alike. She has been very kind to me when I volunteer in her class.

    Here is Maria’s story:

    “El sábado yo jugué con mis mynecas a que una mynca era la mama y la otra ques la hermin mayar y la hermana Chiqueta y me diverti mucho jugando mis munecas.”

    Maria

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  • A–Z Reading Challenge Update​

    Rae Longest's avatarblogging807

    In the last update, I posted, I mentioned beginning Reading with Patrick, a book given me by Debbie Nance of Readerbuzz. I have not quite finished it but have finished The Sunken Cathedral, for the letter “S.” I just finished posting a review of Cathedral on an “accidental blog” I discovered on https://literacyletters317703915.wordpress.com

    I have already taken down a book from my TBR shelf for the letter “T,” This Noble Land” subtited, “My Vision for America” by James Mitchner. It was published in 1996, as Mitchner was approaching his ninetieth birthday.  I have no idea how I acquired this paperback, nor have I ever heard of it. Either my friend Deb Nance of Readerbuzz passed it along to me, or my friend, Susan gave it to me in one of the many cartons of books she gave me to “have first dibs on, but to see they get…

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  • ATTENTION! Accidental Blog: LOL

    Because of a failure of techie skills in knowing where to “send”/”move things and of reblogging, I have discovered that an old blog I created to teach students how to set up a blog, has not only reappeared but is up and running with posts never seen on my other blogs. WOW!

    To access it or check it out, go to https://literacyletters317703915.wordpress.com

    Crazy, huh?

    Rae

  • THE SUNKEN CATHEDRAL by Kate Walbert: A Review

    This 2015 novel’s colorful cover displayed at the Alvin Library attracted me and “forced” me to check it out. I knew the Impressionistic cover depicted the sunken cathedral of the title, and it “looked like” music. Although I had never heard of Debussy’s score, “The Sunken Cathedral” (described as the composer’s ” musical version of Impressionism”), I was moved by just looking at the cover.

    All this from just the cover and title! According to the blurbs on the back, Walbert’s story follows a group of characters, “as they negotiate one of Manhatten’s swiftly changing neighborhoods.”  The New York Times calls it, “a stunningly beautiful, profoundly wise novel,” and describes Walbert as “a wickedly smart, gorgeous writer.”  It opens with a strange prelude, written in italics. Flood waters swirl and drown all things, engulfing the city.  We do not know what city it is until later.

    We meet in the first chapter, two elderly friends, Matie and Simone. Both had immigrated from Europe after surviving WWII. They are finishing dinner together and hurrying out so as not to be late for their art lesson. Sid Morris, once an artist, now a washed-up art instructor, who has students meet in his shabby apartment, is their teacher. The conversation between the six students, each with his or her backstory, explained in long,  narrative “footnotes,” more “side-stories” than anything else, round out the characters of each student.  The interplay between the instructor and the students laps over into the students’ private lives as well.

    Marie, much younger than the two friends, appears soon. She is their landlady, who has issues of her own, in which they quickly become involved. This interesting device allows the author to create a sub-plot which keeps the reader involved in the plot and beginning to care for each character.

    Cathedral,  the author’s peek into twenty-first-century life, is as well written as it is conceived and designed. It is a splendid novel in every aspect and one you certainly will enjoy as much as did I.

  • SATURDAY MORNING FOR KIDS

    Kids who are in high school or junior high love graphic novels. Some are too violent, some too sexy, some too horror-prone to be healthy reading for adolescents. However, today’s selection for junior high and high school kids, a graphic novel by Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe, sends important messages which are expressed in the dedications by each:

    “To India, Milo, and anyone who’s ever sought to stand out in a crowd–A.H.”

    “For my fellow cartoonists out there, who inspire me to draw–P.H.”

    And the title? There is none. A single peanut–lifelike, stands against an indescribable shade of blue. At the bottom are the author’s names–nothing else. The drawing throughout the novel is “special” (and inspiring) to young readers who are budding cartoonists or constant doodlers. The writing is straight-forward, and authentically represents the dialog of teens.

    The protagonist and narrator, a freshman in high school who is changing schools, decides to fake a peanut allergy to stand out as “the new girl” because she feels she is not special enough or different enough to “fit in” or find a circle of friends. She is conflicted, like most teens, between conforming and standing out. True to the formula of many teen novels, she tells a lie and then bears the repercussions and consequences when the lie is “found out.” The author’s scenes where the girl almost confesses the lie, then does not, create anxiety and concern in the reader. One turns the pages rapidly to find out what is going to happen next.

    And the ending? So many possible outcomes are expected by readers, but the reality is a surprise! Although an adult, I enjoyed this graphic novel greatly and admired the talents of both Halliday and Hoppe; my mind often shouted, “Yay!” as I shifted into the thinking/reading styles of my former eighth and ninth graders. I highly recommend this book for all ages.

     

  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    Chapter One, “La Vie Moderne”    20 July 1880

    “He rode the awkward steam-cycle along the ridge to catch glimpses of the domes and spires of Paris to the east, then turned west and careened headlong down the long steep hill toward the village of Bougival and the Seine. With his right elbow cast in plaster, he could barely reach the handlebar, but he had to get to the river. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Now.  Idleness had been itching him worse than the maddening tickle under the cast.  Only painting would be absorbing enough to relieve them both. Steam hissed out of the engine, but it built up inside of him.”

    This is our first glimpse of Auguste Renoir, wobbling and sliding down an embankment on a steam-cycle, presented by historical novelist, Susan Vreeland. How Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party came to be, changed the school if Impressionism, epitomized by Renoir. This hefty 434-page novel was selected by our Third Tuesday Book Club only because one of our two male members mentioned he had read all of his friend’s historical novels when he knew her years ago in California. None of us had ever heard of her. My understanding of historical novels is that they are about real people, about real events, set in real places, then the author imagines what these people think, say, and do. A good historical novel, for me, cannot include too many facts or be too researched. Looking at the painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party, even a novice art critic/appreciator can tell the difficulties presented in painting it: Many people, light issues, representing movement, and showing France, La Vie Moderne.  Reading this book is not a mental action, but an experience. Vreeland shares the passion of the artist, the drive to paint and create, and the lighthearted conversation and enjoyment of the moment and the age–all captured by slashing, hurried brush strokes over several sessions. Vreeland captures the Jois de Vie of the moment and of the times.

    I enjoyed this book so much that I am going to make reading all of Susan Vreeland’s books a goal to finish by New Year’s Day, 2021. I think there are seven, and all are about artists and paintings. At our club meeting last Tuesday, the assignment was to read any Susan Vreeland.  I heard about three of them besides Luncheon, and immediately thought, I’ve got to read that one!

  • WEDNESDAY WORDS OF WISDOM

    I received four huge boxes of discarded books from a nearby town’s public library and have been sorting them, looking through them, and distributing them for two days. One book I’ve exercised my “First Dibs” privilege on is Fall of Frost by Brian Hall (pub. 2008).  For this Lit major, it is definitely a “keeper.” Its dedication page is one of the most interesting ones I’ve read :

    “In memory of Louis Alton Hall

    physicist and father, who recited to me the first lines of Frost I ever heard

    ‘Home is the place where when you have to go there,

                                        They have to let you in.’

    and who kept hidden in his desk, where no one found it until after his death, a copy of Frost’s, “Revelation”

    ‘We make ourselves a place apart

    Behind light words and tease and flour,

    But, oh the agitated heart

    Till someone find us really out.’ “

     

  • MONDAY MUSINGS (ON TUESDAY)

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    In the back of my closet, I found a textbook sent to me,asking me to consider using it for my Composition and Literature class. Nancy Atwell’sThe Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers, was published in 2007, but is helping immensely with my efforts to spread the love of reading in my volunteer work in my community. I have just read the introduction and the first two chapters, thinking all the time how useful this book would have been in my first teaching job, handling three Language Arts Blocks at seventh grade level; the book would have been invaluable my second year, where the AISD school district junior high day was divided into 45 minute segments. At that time (1968) reading was an elective in junior high (grades 7 & 8 only). Students who had scheduled beginning either Spanish or French in seventh grade…

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  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    One day I hope to meet the girl/young lady (?) who donated today’s recommendation to my Little Free Library. I had just finished Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, about a black, land-holders family, struggling to “make it” in the rural South during Depression Days, when a gorgeous purple 5″x7″ book turned up. That’s part of the fun of an LFL, people put books in as well as take them out. On the cover were black and white photos of a stately, African American woman, dressed for church; a young girl, about eleven, striking a pose that indicates she has a mind of her own; a tiny sleeping baby, and a typical southern bungalow-styled home; a typical Sunday dinner, complete with cornbread and collard greens. From the lady’s hat, dress, and pearls, the reader might guess that the lady is a relative of the girl or a respected woman of the girl’s community. All this is set against a rich, purple background. The author’s name, Barbara Hathaway. The title: Missy Violet and Me. The “me” turns out to be Hathaway’s grandmother, who like the family in Thunder, lived during the Great Depression.

    The story is based on true stories told to the writer by her mother about her grandmother’s life as a young girl The photos comprising the cover must be family photos. Viney, an eleven-year-old girl narrates the story, for it is her story, hers and the town’s midwife, Miss Violet, “…one of the most looked-up-to ladies in Richmond County.” As the book opens, Viney’s sister is delivered by Miss Violet, and Viney hears her shamed father tell Miss Violet that he cannot pay. She reminds him that he still owes her for the delivery of the last child, and suggests that Viney work off his debt by assisting her in her practice. When her father agrees, Viney is so excited and feels so important that she sings softly under her breath as she goes off to bed, “Gonna’ work for Miss Violet! Gonna’ work for Miss Violet; gonna’ catch me some babies.”

    It is a lovely, “soft” encouraging story for a young girl in upper elementary or junior high.   It is appealing, not only because of the cover’s beauty and its petite, “thin” size (LOL) but because of the influence a mentor can have on a child’s life. The author describes how Viney’s education/apprenticeship leads to her vocation and the finding of her identity. Perhaps because I am a teacher, I was inspired by Miss Violet’s methods and compassion, agreeing with her: Yes, mentoring a young woman-to-be is ‘worth it’. The “Kristin M. Soto,” who donated the book and decorated the inside, right, purple, fronts- page in silver pencil, adding curlicues and  “favorites”: “cats/pizza/softball/art/[and the color] lime green” in her design. I would love to someday meet this woman and invite her in for a cup of tea and conversation.

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    Today’s Tuesday Teaser, a “bookish tag hosted by The Purple Booker “(Brainfluff blog), is from March’s Third Tuesday Book Club’s selection.  One of our scarce male members mentioned an author he met while living in California, and asked if we might like to read one of her books. Our instructions were to choose any Susan Vreeland book, and we would compare notes when we meet later this month. Several books owned by our branch of the library were available to check out.  I chose Luncheon of the Boating Party whose cover was Renoir’s painting of the same name.  It tells the story of how Renoir came to paint this famous masterpiece, which changed a whole school/ideal of painting from the Impressionists to something more detailed and “real.”

    The writing is exceptional, something I consider when deciding if I like a book or not.  Here is Vreeland’s description of one of the women in the portrait gathering items needed to stage the scene where the Luncheon would be painted.

    “Under the sycamore boughs, she looked for marsh peppermints to make a wreath for Auguste’s luncheon on Sunday. When it was dry, it had a piquant, minty fragrance that might mask the occasional smell from the sewage plants upriver in Anieres. She wanted their day to be lovely in all ways so their pleasure would show on their faces for him to paint.”

    There are many equally descriptive scenes of The Seine, and some opening ones using words to describe Renoir’s exuberance for his “vision” and excitement as he planned the painting. The fine writing is enough to “hook” me and to encourage me to finish this unique book.