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.”

  • TIME TRAVEL

    In going through old files, something I can do sitting down, I came across these thoughts from a group of sixth graders responding to the prompt, “If I could travel in time…”

    I would explore the land of the dinosaurs.

    I’d go back to Camelot.  I’d ride a unicorn.

    I’d go back to Medieval times and go on adventures.

    I’d go back to the Civil War.

    I’d like to meet “Blood and Guts” Patton

    I would go far back and meet my great, great, great grandparents.

    I’d go back and see my great grandmother who was full-blooded Indian.

    I would see what my mom and dad were like in school.

     

    I’d go into the future and see what my life would be.

    I’d fly a spaceship.

    I would look at all the strange suits and costumes.

    I’d see what my kids would look like.

    I would go back and invent stuff that would happen in the future.

    I’d go into the future and SALUTE the past!

     

    I would change the world so that there would be eternal life forever.

    I would have Jesus shake my hand.

    I would reach back and shake hands with God.

     

    Language Arts Blocks; Disney Elementary; Alvin, Texas, 19884

  • Audio Book/Younger Readers: A Review

    I haven’t listened to an audio book since trips to Virginia by car or since The Dark Tower by Steven King first came out as an audio attempt, which had to stop after book four because of the death of King’s reader–many years ago. I am currently finishing the Dark Tower, circling back to pick up a skipped book four, then finishing up where I am now with the conclusion, book seven.

    That said, I heard of a kid’s book, Chasing Vermeer, which our local library had only on audio book.  It has been a good accompaniment  to peeling potatoes and otherwise putting meals together as well as an off-your-feet pastime during my recent foot woes.

    The two middle school protagonists, Calder, a boy and Petra,  ( a female stand-in as best friend for Tommy who has recently moved away ) are likable and extremely intelligent, and are enrolled in an exceptional sixth grade class at the university lab school. Balliett, the author, and Ellen Reilly, who voices the novel, bring them to life as they strive to solve the mystery of a mid-transit theft of a painting by Vermeer, the mysterious painter of mysterious paintings. Wondering if their teacher and an old lady in the neighborhood are involved, the two kids become immersed in a fast paced, twisty-turny adventure.

    The descriptions of Veneer’s paintings are accurate and well done, tantalizing the reader’s mind until she looks them up to see the paintings themselves.  I wished the CD box had had a paper portfolio of the paintings orally described. As the children are intrigued by the patterns, connections, and “coincidences” in a strange book by Foote, their sixth senses come into play as they investigate the goings on in their school and neighborhood.  Strange letters, police protection, and the kidnapping of a painting to draw attention to Vermeer all merge together to make a delightful mystery and a good read for any sixth or seventh grader.

  • A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD: REVIEW

    This book, by Michael Cunningham, first published in 1990, took the author six years to write and took me just two days to read on my kindle. It was a slow-paced, but never draggy read.  In the words of the Los Angeles Times reviewer’s words, “We come to know [Johnathan, Bobby, and Clare] as if we lived with them, yet each one retains the mystery called…soul and in fiction is called art.” The novel redefines the concept of “family” and gives us an inside look at the AIDS epidemic, perhaps assigning the reader a new compassion for those personally affected by it. It deals with the commonplace but “makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar” (Ciardi) , giving this reader a whole new insight on the era.

    One person whose outcome I was totally satisfied with was Alice, Johnathan’s mother. She was an unsatisfied, unhappy woman, trapped in a loveless marriage, then a widow, during the course of the novel. Although the ending, for all the characters, was not a totally happy one, this reader found it a satisfying conclusion to the life questions and personal quests of the three major characters.  In all, it was a good read.

  • TUESDAY THOUGHTS

    This Tuesday finds me thinking about grading proposals for the final paper and trying to remember if I told the students I would be grading off for punctuation (It does not count for a grade) or not to worry about it.  Once I start the actual grading, it will become obvious what I actually said.

    Looking over Zinsser’s On Writing Well, which I have chosen for my textbook, I am seeing if other punctuation besides the comma and the semi-colon should be squeezed into the time we have left and have come across Zinsser’s words about the exclamation mark:
    “Don’t use it unless you must to achieve a certain effect. It has a gushy aura, the breathless excitement of a debutante commenting on an event that was exciting only to her: ‘Daddy says I must have had too much champagne!’  ‘But honestly, I could have danced all night!’ We have all shared a number of sentences in which an exclamation point has hit us over the head with how cute or wonderful something was. Instead, construct your sentences so that the order of the words will put the emphasis where you want it. Also resist using an exclamation point to notify the reader that you are making a joke or being ironic. ‘It never occurred to me that the water pistol might be loaded!’ Readers are annoyed by your reminder that this was a comical moment. They are also robbed of the pleasure of finding it funny on their own. Humor is best achieved by understatement, and there’s nothing subtle about an exclamation point.”

    Good advice for us all.

  • MONDAY MUSINGS

    A book that has caused me to muse on faith and its various manifestations for the past few weeks is Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. Published in 1999 by this renowned essayist and novelist, it’s messages are still just as relevant as ever.

    As one critic said, Lamott can be “…both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime…sometimes in the same breath.” She gives the reader stories of her life and about her son, Sam, at an early age.  It is “tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny.” It covers from her troubled past through her enlightened life today.  My favorite essay was from the “Fambly” section, titled “Mom”.  In it Lamott writes, “In the photo (of her mother and herself) I am looking over at her with enormous gentleness because I sometimes feel this…But I was only feeling this about half the time that day. The rest of the time, I was annoyed…she is not at all whom I would have picked at the Neiman-Marcus Mommy Salon.”

    Lamott makes the reader smile; she makes her/him tear up, but she always makes the reader want to read on.  I rationed my reading to one or two essays a day, for I wanted to savor each one, to ruminate and muse on the kernel of each one, to restore my faith and to understand the otherness of friends’ brands of faith and in whom/what they have faith. Lamott allowed me to do just that.

  • SUNDAY (EVENING) POST

    For someone “laid up” for two weeks, this has been a very busy week. At least while sitting, keeping my feet up, I’ve had time for reading.

    Finished last week: Girl in Translation, reviewed Saturday; Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, to be reviewed soon

    Watched on TV:  Not much

    What I did:  Wednesday of last week, my writing class was taught by “Jack,” a British actor who was visiting the university to perform three of the twenty-two roles in Romeo and Juliet this weekend.  The students had a great time; I was able to sit with my feet propped up, and thus, had a great time; and Jack had a good time as well.

    I had two scheduled “treatments” for plantar fasciitis at the local chiropractic clinic who often provide treatments for all kinds of pain and injuries, right here in our little town.  What a blessing not to have to travel to Houston. Because of these treatments, staying completely off my feet, and the prayers of friends, I am showing marked improvement.

    Saturday, my AAUW group (ten women attended) came to my house for its monthly meeting.  This was scheduled back in August, but was a real blessing because I wouldn’t have been able to make it if I had to leave the house. We had a make-shift but inspiring program, an informative business meeting, and lots of catching and up and fellowship  while eating pasta salad (provided by a member) garden salad, a relish tray (my contributions) and chips and dip, poppy seed, lemon muffins, coffee doughnuts (provided by members).  I had agreed to provide the place, coffee and tea and had a good time designing a centerpiece and playing hostess while the ladies took over my kitchen and even handled the clean up afterwards.  It was a stress-free afternoon.  It was so good to see friends and have them fuss over me!

    Looking forward to reading this week: Finishing Freeks–I’m about half way through; and I have started The Runaways, another immigrant story.

    This week should find me completely healed and maybe doing a little driving around town.  I have a treatment on my feet Wednesday, but no big plans for Spring Break (March 13-17) except to catch up and plan and prepare for the rest of the school semester.

     

  • GIRL IN TRANSLATION: A REVIEW

    This 2010 debut novel by Kimberly Chang is a wonderful immigrant story with the young protagonist (based on the author, herself),coming of age under the worst of circumstances and overcoming, magnificently,the highest of obstacles. She is from China, surrounded by a foreign language and culture as she enters the U.S.  Her misunderstanding of words and phrases she hears in English are almost humorous to the reader as she enters seventh and eighth grade to discover that she has a “talent for school”, especially in the areas of math and science.

    She and her mother are sponsored by a spiteful, jealous aunt to whom they are indebted and forced to live in squalor in a condemned apartment in the Bronx. The girl finds herself “growing up between two worlds” and experiencing the thrill and anxiety of young love. The love story has an unusual but satisfying ending. As she “staggers under the weight of her family’s expectations and the depths of her culture confusion” she keeps her integrity and high ideals, always true to herself. Only she can and must find a way out from under all this for her and her mother. The story takes her through the first year of college, then has an epilogue that occurs twelve years later which wraps things up nicely.

    It is a good read, and I am pleased to recommend it.

  • RECENT READS: Reviews of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Church of the Dog

    Kathleen Rooney has written a fascinating book about a fascinating woman in Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. The novel is based on a real person, Margaret Fishback, who lived in the 1930s and published witty poetry and several books. Like Margaret, Lillian, the fictional character works for many years as an ad writer for Macy’s Department store.The story takes place in one evening and night, New Year’s Eve, 1984, in Manhattan, as Lillian Boxfish walks alone for a total of ten miles.  As she walks, she considers her life, which covered ” ” from “the jazz age to the AIDS epidemic,” “from the Great Depression to the birth of hip hop.” It not only explores the changes in Lillian Boxfish,but the changes in N.Y. specifically, and the US in general.  Lillian is extremely openminded for an octogenarian, and is flexible to at least accept change as it throws itself at her. As a reviewer said, “There is a little of Lillian Boxfish in all of us. And if there isn’t, there ought to be.”

    Another book I finished this week was Kaya McLaren’s Church of the Dog.  Interestingly enough, it was originally published in 2000, then after input and advice from fans and book club appearances, the author re-wrote it, making extensive changes and re-published it in 2008. The novel is set in Oregon farm country among the many cattle ranches and “good country people” who occupy them. One such couple is the McRaes, whose lives are turned around and upside down by the appearance of Maura O’ Shawnessey, who has the “gift,” as the Irish say. She fixes up an old bunkhouse on the McRaes’ property which comes to be called “The Church of the Dog” by the neighbors because of it’s arched entrance and mural of a  friendly dog on the front. Surprisingly, a real dog, who looks exactly the same as the mural arrives one night in the middle of a thunderstorm, which Maura names Zeus, appropriately, since Zeus was the god of the thunderbolt and storm. The novel holds many surprises and completely redefines the concept of “family.” However, no surprise is bigger than the surprise ending. It is available in large print at the Alvin Library.

  • Sunday (Evening) Post

    What I finished this past week:  Sea Change, reviewed yesterday; Church of the Dog and Miss Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, soon to be reviewed.

    What I am continuing to Read: Girl in Translation,read a few chapters today, and Traveling Mercies by Ann Lamott.  On the latter I am rationing out one or two essays a day to make the  book last and to have time to ponder over each essay before moving on in this book of essays.

    What I watched on TV: “Emerald City,” two episodes including this season’s finale, and two episodes of “Bull,” a fascinating show for it’s concept and also it’s plots and relationship sub-plots.

    Have mostly been sitting marooned on the couch first by plantar fasciitis and today by the steady rain.  Only got out once today to take supper to a sick friend.  It was just down the road, and there was little traffic out and about.  I did get a little wet, so I took a vitamin C with a zinc chaser (boots the immunity system and the absorption of the C), so I should be fine.

    Have a good evening and a good read tonight.

  • Quotes About Reading

    Not too long ago, I included on this blog my favorite quotes about writing.  Today, I offer some of my favorites on reading:

    “But do not read, as children read, for fun, or like the ambitious read, for training purposes.  No, read for your life.”      Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, in a letter to a friend.

    The habit of reading, I make bold to tell you , is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect of pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.  It lasts when all other pleasures fade.  It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death.  It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.” Anthony Trollope, Victorian novelist (1815-1882).

    And, a couple of more modern ones:

    “One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” Cassandra Clare (author)

    “Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.”     Steven Spielberg

    Add your favorite(s) to the comment section that follows.