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 LINES

    The purpose of this little “game” is to copy the first line or two of a book you have just started or one you will read soon. Maybe you can use the same book for your Tuesday Teaser and include it as a book you are currently reading on WWW Wednesday. By Thursday, you will be ready to review the book! (LOL)

    My Friday First lines are from a book a friend donated to my LFL (Little Free Library) which I decided to read first. Written by Florence Littauer, It Takes So Little to Be Above Average, has been an interesting, non-fiction read. Here are the book’s first lines:

    “Some women want to run everything they can get their hands on, and others would rather die than become involved with leadership Whatever type you are, the day may come when this kind of responsibility falls upon you, and you find yourself precariously unprepared.”

    Some of the book is relevant to my life, and some, because I am retired, is not. However, it never hurts to strive for excellence in all we do, and I believe the book will be helpful reading.

  • Monday Message: One Kind Word

    Monday Message: One Kind Word

  • From Fall To Winter

    From Fall To Winter

    A blogger friend’s exceptional poem

    aurorajeanalexander's avatarWriter's Treasure Chest

    It’s gray outside, and once again

    the world turns cold with fog and rain.

    No more golden colors of the fall

    the season ends, once and for all.

    **

    Not long ago the grass was green

    the early fall our eyes have seen;

    now, brown and flat on ground it lies

    There is no doubt, our nature dies.

    **

    Rain pours down, the sky is gray

    it’s dark outside, even during day.

    Evenings are cold, no time to jog

    the days start slow with thick white fog.

    **

    The trees are bald, the leaves are gone

    they’re dead and wet on our lawn.

    It seems the time for wet and cold

    for rain and frost, for death and mold.

    **

    The year ends soon, it’s Christmas time

    we should all laugh and sing and rhyme.

    Nature has made its own pace slow

    we all just hope for Christmas snow.

    **

    View original post 44 more words

  • Monday Funnies…

    Monday Funnies…

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    Tuesday Teaser is a meme/game originally started by The Purple Booker. The idea is to open a book at random or where you left off, and copy a sentence (or so) which might tease someone into looking into reading the book also. Be sure to include book title and author, and no spoilers/endings please.

    My Tuesday Teaser for 12/11/18 is from a book donated to my LFL (Little Free Library) in my yard. It is a 1983 publication by Florence Littauer, entitled It Takes So Little to Be Above Average. I would describe it as inspirational because it often quotes Bible wisdom from Proverbs. I confess that I am not reading it word-by-word or straight through, but here is some advice from a chapter on hurtful words:

    “Bill Gates, who is involved in prison ministry, asked a group of inmates how many had parents that told them that they were stupid and would end up in jail. One hundred per cent raised their hands in affirmation.”

    Give your URL where you have posted your Tuesday Teaser. OR simply type your Tuesday Teaser in the Response Box below.

    Thanks for playing along.

     

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    In a box of books donated to my Little Free Library, I found and read You Have a Girlfriend, Alfie Atkins? by Gunilla Bergstrom, which was published back in 1988. I hope it was a young boy who owned this book, and his parent or grandparent donated it, for the “lesson” that Alfie, the protagonist learns is one young boys everywhere should learn. Friendships with girls are not “unmanly” and something to be avoided at all costs, but certain girls like Milly, Alfie’s friend are “not exactly a girl.” When the other boys tease Alfie for playing with Milly, and even write “Alfie loves Milly ” on the bathroom wall for the whole school to read, these same boys end up envious of Alfie and Milly’s tree fort which has many ingenious features and inventions thought up by Milly.

    My favorite parts are the pages with the illustrations of how girls are, and how Milly is NOT like a girl, and then the page where Alfie lists how Milly IS like a boy:

    ” Milly almost never cries./ She invents things./ Right now she is making a mailbox, with a rope pulley for the fort./ (Milly never tells anyone about the fort. She knows how to keep a secret.)/ Everyone says that Milly is a REDHEAD./ Alfie doesn’t think so. / Her hair isn’t red; it sparkles like gold–at least when the sun is shining./ And she even wears a heart of gold around her neck!/ Milly is a good friend because she knows…

    How to make candy and bake cakes…and build a toy circus…and do a handstand on one hand. She’s not afraid of jumping off the garage roof, and she can make really disgusting faces. Look!

    Now she is working on a bell for the mailbox. It will ring when you pick up the mail. You can find out things from Milly. You can learn things from her.”

    These quoted passages are included in five of the most wonderfully illustrated pages of Alfie and Milly’s adventures (and “things that girls, in general, do” and “the boys” Alfie is friends with), but I could not find the illustrator’s name anywhere! I must assume that he/she is an illustrator with R&S Books. The book is originally a Swedish book and is distributed in the US by FArrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y and in the UK by Ragged Bears, Andover; in Canada by General Publishing, Toronto; and in Australia by ERA Publications, Adelaide.

    It is a book every boy should read!

     

  • RAISING LAZARUS by Aidan J. Reid

    I “met” Aidan several years ago when his first novel, Pathfinder, was published.  The book was a real page turner about a young man whose friend was in a coma, constantly having nightmares and wasting away. When he learned that it was possible to enter his friend’s dream and help him to wake up, he did so. I was intrigued by lucid dreaming, and even encouraged a psychology student to do her argument research paper on how psychologists are using lucid dreaming for patients suffering from night terrors or even PTSD. The book was full of action and a great read.

    Reid’s second book, Sigil, was a mystery that was excellent as well. The main character, a priest in a small village in Ireland discovers an evil so profound that it makes him doubt his faith.

    His third novel, Raising Lazarus, is my favorite so far.

    Summary: Molly Walker, granddaughter of Roy Walker, prison warden at Lockworth Correctional Facility, needs a criminology grad school thesis, and asks her grandfather to let her interview an “interesting” prisoner to use as a base. A handsome,  prisoner with a Middle Eastern appearance and only one name,” Lazarus”, arrested for prostitution, becomes her “project.” When he is paroled, they become involved, and the nail-biting, action scene near the end includes actual people, events and facts from the story’s time that make the reader feel the story could have happened.

    Is he the Lazarus? This pivotal question of the novel explores the “dark underbelly of the city” as Lazarus’s story unfurls. Is the “gift” of being raised from the dead a blessing or a curse?

    Sometimes the story jumps back and forth in time, but after about the fourth chapter, the narrative is straightforward and easy to follow.

    I highly recommend Raising Lazarus as a “thinking reader’s” novel which will cause you to hold your breath until the very end.  5 out of 5 stars.   * * * * *

  • NOVEMBER WRAP UP

    Today is December first, which leads me to reflect on the books I read during the month of November. I was amazed when counting back that I had read eleven books: a book about books, an inspirational book, a memoir, a mystery, a non-fiction book, a Newberry Award winning kid’s novel, three novels, and two YA novels. This floored me, for also during the month of November, I graded 23 research/argument (7-10 pages each) papers; my students finished and presented their Literacy Projects; I caught a four-day virus, which I promptly shared with My Better Half; my brother from Virginia came for a visit; I turned another year older, and we celebrated Thanksgiving.  Whew!

    Here is a quick list of titles and authors I read:

    Academic Curveball by James J. Cudney (to be reviewed here soon) Kindle

    And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hasseini (reviewed on this blog recently) audio book

    Books For Living by Will Schwalbe (reviewed on this blog recently) borrowed from an e-library

    Compulsion ( a YA novel) Kindle

    For One More Day by Mitch Albom (to be reviewed here soon)

    In The Shadow of the Statues by Mitch Landrieu ( to be reviewed here soon) Book club selection for November

    Jesus by Max Lucado borrowed from church library

    The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (reviewed on “Saturday Mornings for Kids” on this blog)

    Never Stop Walking by Christina Rickardsson (reviewed recently)

    Nightbird by Alice Hoffman, which resumes my Alphabet Challenge

    Raising Lazarus (to be reviewed here soon)

    With the Christmas Holidays fast approaching, I may not do as much reading, but there are still so many books on my TBR shelves, and my “little brother” gave me a Barnes and Nobel gift card for my birthday!

     

     

     

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    Today’s Saturday morning selection, Is That A Sick Cat in Your Backpack? is by Todd Strasser.  It is the second book in “The Tardy Boys Series” (No, that is not a typo.) published in 2007. The target audience for the book is ages 7-10, according to the author’s hilarious “Author’s Note and Warning.” Strasser explains that “Tardy Boys” is a two book series, the first book titled, Is That A Dead Dog in Your Locker?  He allows kids to read Sick Cat as a stand-alone, reminding them that he, “the author,” at the end of book one, mentions “The Meowians from the Planet Meow in the Feline Galaxy.” He goes on to tell readers, “The Meowians have changed their name and the name of their planet.”

    The cover is the biggest hook of the book.  One of the boys is holding a scarf over his nose as “fumes” of smell arise from his school backpack. Greg Swinson, responsible for the cover art is amazing. The book opens with “The Missing Cat Mystery,” written in the form of a memo from” Commander Claw on Planet Hiss in the Feline Galaxy,” and the zanyness goes on from there. We meet The Tardy Boys: T.J., Wade and Leyton, coming home from a party.  The mystery builds raucously as a skinny, foul smelling, raggedy cat is delivered at night by a weird “person?” and becomes the source of their woe.  Other characters like Fibby Mandible and Barton Slugg make the boys’ lives miserable throughout the book.

    I laughed until I gagged; I reached for the air freshener at times, and continued on.  It will delight seven to ten year old boys everywhere. If they read it with a friend, they will punch each other and giggle madly at the second adventure of The Tardy Boys.

  • THURSDAY THOUGHTS

    I found this on Ritu’s “But I Smile Anyway” blog recently.

    “Don’t you dare say I only work half a day.

    Don’t you dare sneer at my ten weeks “off” a year.

    Give me this , and I’ll give you my roll.

    But I warn you , my friend, it takes heart, body, and soul.”   (Anon.)

    This reflects my respect for teachers everywhere at all levels. As a veteran of 50 years of teaching junior high, community college, and university classes. I KNOW how hard it can get, and I KNOW how wonderful it can be.