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.”

  • National I Love to Write Day

    History of I Love to Write Day

    Delaware-based author John Riddle created I Love to Write Day in 2002. John Riddle has a habit of writing books for the past thirty years, and he had written nearly 34 books so far. The main aim behind the creation of this day is to have people of all ages to spend some time writing. I Love to Write Day is observed by many different organizations, schools, churches, community halls, and even shopping centres.  It includes all genres, from novels to poetry to writing into your local newspaper with the circumstance that you have always wanted to make but never found time for before. Riddle said “Peoples can write a poem, letter, greeting card, short story, essay, novel, and the possibilities are endless. They need to be challenged in this modern era, and writing is the best way to express themselves.” He also said I Love To Write Day has the capability of producing another Mary Higgins Clark, John Grisham, Stephen King or Toni Morrison. Hence it is a perfect day to write something on the paper.

    I Love to Write Day
    I Love to Write Day

    Other Celebrations on November 15

    November 15 is also celebrated as

    How to Observe I Love to Write Day

    The best way to celebrate the I Love to Write Day is by writing something on the paper. If you are not a lover of writing, then take this day as an opportunity to start the habit of writing. Help your friends and family members to understand the benefits of Writing. Post pictures and share your thoughts on social media by using the hashtag #ILovetoWriteDay.

    Thank you for reading the post. You can celebrate every day with Happydays365.org and Happy I Love to Write Day .

  • Castellan the Black and his Wise Draconic Tips on Life in General #BrainfluffCastellanthe Black #WiseDragonicTipsonLife #PickyEaters

    sjhigbee's avatarBrainfluff

    When perching on a stony outcrop to serenade a beautiful young queen, whatever you do, don’t land on a sleeping stone troll. When he wakes up, he’ll really wreck the romantic mood.

    Castellan the Black, mighty dragon warrior, features in my short story Picky Eaters, written to provide a humorous escape from all the stuff that isn’t happening on Wyvern Peak… All proceeds for the duration of its publishing life are donated to mental health charities.

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  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS ON SATURDAY NIGHT

    I did not read one kid’s book all week. Strange for me, but my reading time was occupied with adult fiction and non-fiction. For today’s recommendation, I’m going to recommend the kid’s book that my 1979 7th graders voted #1 in their top ten books that is still being read by kids everywhere today, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.

    A kid’s classic

    Several years ago, about this time of year, I did a post on The Story of Charlotte’s Web by Michael Sims, which told the story of how this famous children’s novel came to be written and published. Use the search engine and enter the title to read this review if you haven’t already read it.

    I have read several articles over the years since 1979 about this classic, ranging from its value in teaching children about true friendship to how it harms young, sensitive children because Charlotte dies at the end.

    As long as there are parents who love to read to their children and loved Charlotte’s Web when they were a kid, the story of Wilbur and Charlotte will live on for generations.

  • NOVEMBER IS NATIONAL FAMILY LITERACY MONTH

    Promoting literacy comes naturally to us teachers in the classroom and the education system, but literacy in the home, family literacy, is just as important. The home, with parents as our children’s first teachers, is the first place children are exposed to reading and writing. It is where they first learn to love books and do “bookish things,” like acting out plays, stories, movies or “reading” to their stuffed animals or playing “school” long before they’re old enough to attend. Because of this, there are ways you can promote family literacy at home.

    1. Set aside some time every day to read.
    2. Keep books around the house.
    3. Make regular visits to the library.
    4. Read together the book version of your child’s favorite movie.
    5. Organize a children’s book club with their friends in the neighborhood.

    (www.kumor.com)

    More things you can do to celebrate this month:

    1. Make bookmarks (and maybe give them as Thanksgiving presents. Even if there is to be no family gathering this year, they mail easily.
    2. Write a story where each family member writes a paragraph, section, or chapter about a family event or vacation. (www.gettingsmart.com)
    3. Build together and maintain a Little Free Library.
    4. Record children’s books for local hospitals. Have different family members read different parts.
    5. Write a family cookbook and give as Christmas gifts. I use a loose leaf notebook.

    6. Use memes to print flyers to advertise favorite books and hand out or mail to friends.

    I am sure you and your family can think of many other “bookish” activities. The emphasis this month, however, is carrying out these literacy activities AS A FAMILY!

  • THE ART OF PURRING by David Michie: A Review

    The second book in a series about the Dali Lama’s Cat

    I read this book on my Kindle, and I found that I am enjoying reading electronically almost as much as handling a physical book. That’s progress for me! HCC, His Holiness’s Cat, aka Snow Lion contemplates the question, “What makes cats purr?” As a matter of fact, she meditates on purring, an act of joy, contentment and satisfaction through the whole book. Interestingly enough, there are many reasons cats purr, and HCC enlightens us with anecdotes for all the different ones. As she instructs us, we get to explore Buddhism’s views on happiness.

    Told from the cat’s point of view, the story examines the deep-down happiness seen more in cats than in other animals. Michie, through his intriguing plot and developing characters warns us, the readers, about the “perils of self-obsession.” Besides the setting of the Dali Lama’s palace, the author creates The Himalaya Book Cafe, where HCC spends a great deal of her time when the Dali Lama is away and where she discovers a Karmic connection in this second book.

    As one critic says, the book is filled with “wisdom, warmth, and a touch of mischief.”

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    The Purple Booker thought up a popular meme, the Tuesday Teaser. In it one is asked to turn to wherever she is reading in a current book and copy two or so sentences in order to “tease” someone into reading the book.

    My Tuesday Teaser for today is from Rick Riordan’s The Devil Went Down to Austin. I am currently on page 219. Detective Lopez is talking to the murder suspect’s brother, Tres Navarro, a private eye. The local police are looking for the body of a woman whose boat has been found drifting.

    “I’ll see you later,” Lopez told me. “Go teach your class.” (Tres teaches a history class at UT in Austin to get his mind off the seamier side of PI life.)

    “He met my eyes, and just for that moment I saw the anger behind his smile–the offense I’d done him by digging too deep…He was giving me fair warning.”

  • Whatcha Readin’?

    Whatcha Readin’?

    Jen Payne's avatar

    This is Joe. Joe reads books. Be like Joe. Visit 3 Chairs Publishing’s online SHOP to buy books today!

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  • NOVEMBER IS QUITE THE LITERARY MONTH !

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    The most widely known literary fact about November is that it is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Many writers and writer wannabes begin writing a novel in November and some of them finish their novels by the month’s end. Many of my students who were interested in writing a novel made the attempt during November of a fall semester.

    It is also National Memoir Writing Month and National Family Literacy Month. Both are things worth celebrating. Last spring, I required all of my Advanced Writing students to read and review a memoir, then to write one of their own. It was one of the most fulfilling assignments I have ever made–both for them, and for me.

    Family Literacy Month is of great importance and one of the things of which memories are made. A later post will discuss how you and your family can celebrate this aspect of November.

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  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS ON SATURDAY EVENING

    As I mentioned in my Tuesday Teaser, the book I read for this Saturday’s post was Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams.

    I dearly LOVE debut novels, and this one was written by a teacher!

    Winner of several awards, this endearing novel is perfect for middle school students, middle grades, 5th through 8th.

    In an authentic voice, Genesis, now in middle school looks back on 5th grade, when some “mean girls” start a list of “Things we hate about Genesis.” Instead of disregarding it, Genesis then saved it and even, over the semesters, added to it, listing things she hated about herself. The greatest of these was her appearance: too nappy-haired, too lanky, and most of all, too dark. Genesis was NOT like her mother, but looked just like her father. Little did she know that her father had a deep, dark, secret that caused him to hate himself too–to the point that he drank too much.

    Genesis’s changing schools and having to go through making new friends (not that she had any anyway) is the plot of the story. Themes of loyalty to friends, self-esteem, body shaming, OCD and other “eccentricities,” and family secrets unfold as the story grabs the reader by the collar and marches her/him through the angst of middle school. We suffer with Genesis, laugh sometimes with her, wish alongside her that things will be different this time.

    It is a darned good read.

  • Advice

    FROM: