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.”

  • DEWEY’S 24 HOUR READATHON 2020: A quick summary

    2020 brings Dewey’s Readathon back again.

    I started the Readathon an hour late because I had stayed up quite late preparing for it. Baking cookies and muffins…

    I was ready. I made my first cup of coffee and off I went.

    I used my favorite cat mug and souvenir mugs students had brought me from Belize, Hawaii, and The Big Apple, NYC.
    I was dressed for the occasion in my Half-Price Books shirt.

    I spent the majority of my time reading, reading, reading. I finished two books I had started, one from the library, one from my TBR pile. I started two other books as well. (I finished both of these Sunday afternoon.) I spent some time visiting other blogs and posting on Powerful Women Readers. I enjoyed a lot of cartoons. I read the Saturday Houston Chronicle from cover to cover, thoroughly catching up on news of the election and the Coronavirus. The comics were especially good. Saturday’s Chronicle features in its “Zest” section both bird-watching “news” and a gardening feature, two columns I have learned a great deal from over the years. When we first moved to Houston, we had two Houston papers and were thrown one in the morning, one in the afternoon. it is sad to witness the decline of print newspapers; we are one of two homes on our cul de sac that receive the paper daily. Most just buy the weekend edition when they’re out or watch the news on TV.

    I caught up to date on my devotional book, Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Someone donated this lovely book to my LFL when they were through with it, so I have been reading January’s and October’s devotionals daily; then I will be in February and November, etc. I found myself copying many sayings down in my Quotes Notebook.

    I read a total of nine hours, then followed up by dedicating all of Sunday afternoon (while My Better Half watched the Texans play) to finishing up what I’d started.

    It made for a wonderful reading weekend.

  • Gradient Gaia

    Gradient Gaia

    Annette Rochelle Aben's avatarAnnette Rochelle Aben

    Hail, wizard of autumn

    As you transform the green land

    Into shades of gold

    From crimson to soft yellow

    The ground is warmed by your touch

    ©2020 Annette Rochelle Aben

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  • MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE by Lori Gottlieb: A Review

    This is probably one of my best non-fiction reads this year, right up there with I’m Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come (see review on this blog). Note the subtitle under the box on the cover for an accurate description of what the book is about. “This is a book that asks, ‘How do we change?’ and it answers with ‘In relation to others.’ ” Gottlieb explores the relationship between patient and therapist with real-life anecdotes from her patients and from her own sessions with her therapist that make us laugh, cry, and smile.

    Gottlieb is a psychotherapist who also writes an advice column for The Atlantic magazine. Her personal, sometimes breezy writing style kept me turning pages way past bedtime.

  • Teamwork Makes The Dream Work (a story)

    Teamwork Makes The Dream Work (a story)

    A Bookish Girl Called Reese's avatarBlogging with Reese

    “Oh, cool!” James, Teagan’s little brother squealed as his hand came up out of the hole in the pumpkin. “Look, Teagan! GUTS!”

    Teagan sighed, squeezed her eyes closed, and plunged her hands into the middle of the pumpkin. It did feel like guts. Teagan jerked her hand out and dropped the pumpkin pulp onto a plate beside her. “Gross.”

    But James didn’t think so; he was already digging around in his pumpkin for more.

    Teagan took a deep breath and told herself, come on, Teagan, you can do this!

    She forced her hand into the pulp and grabbed some, grimacing at the texture. James saw her face and laughed. “Want me to do it?”

    “Yes, please!” Teagan exclaimed and pushed her pumpkin toward him. He finished it in no time.

    Teagan waited until James had finished pulling the ‘guts’ out of his own pumpkin, and then started drawing out the…

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  • SUNDAY QUOTE

    From Dr. Seuss’s I Can Read With My Eyes Shut:

    “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go”

  • SUNDAY STATS

    Rae Longest's avatarLiteracy and Me

    “One in three Houston adults is functionally illiterate. 40% of third graders fail to meet minimum reading standards.” (“A Celebration of Reading 2020: A Vision of Literacy for All” channel 2 Houston)

    Such a great city, and such a huge problem. It is not a “job” for just our schools; it takes effort and attention from all of us. This program featuring http://www.BushHoustonLiteracy.org was one of enlightenment and concern. I do not know what the stats are for my small hometown of 26,000 individuals, thirty miles south of “Big H,”here in Alvin, Texas, but I know, after viewing this inspiring program, I will dedicate what is left of my life to Literacy here in Alvin. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Literacy has many programs like “Ladies for Literacy”, a student mentor program in cooperation with the University of Houston, and a special effort to put new books in the hands…

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  • Tag! I’m It!

    Thanks to Random Specific Inverted Thoughts blog for tagging me in this fun post. We are being asked to list 15 Small Joys in our lives, then tag 5 other bloggers who bring us joy. Here goes:

    FIFTEEN SMALL JOYS

    1. Exercising my arthritic fingers by scratching my cat, Freesia’s head and chin.
    2. Listening to music; learning new forms of music genres to me.
    3. Cooking a nice meal for my husband; he is always an appreciative audience.
    4. Grading a paper that a student has worked hard on (It is evident.) and makes a good grade on.
    5. Teaching face-to-face. Online teaching is really a challenge.
    6. Watching the sermon from my church on Facebook sometime on Sunday.
    7. Reading the Sunday school lesson our teacher, Bill Hasse, sends out each week.
    8. Finding a great quote about reading or writing.
    9. Putting toys and books in my Little Free Library; trading books and adding toys to two other Little Free Libraries in town.
    10. Stretching
    11. Snuggling under the covers in my warm, wooly bathrobe.
    12. Sitting in my living room, looking at my “things” remembering who gave them to me or the occasion on which I bought them (and where)
    13. Finding a bargain I can use, or better yet, NEED.
    14. Enjoying fresh flowers.
    15. Buying a plant for my flowerbeds.

    NOW, YOU’RE IT

    Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

    Sarah J. Higbee at Brainfluff

    Amy at Beloved Amy

    Carla at Carla Loves to Read

    Jay at This Is My Truth Now

    (This completes the tag. have fun, y’all)

  • ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Fredrick Backman: A Review

    (publication date: 2019) I am definitely recommending this one to my book club.

    By the author of A Man Called Ove

    This novel is fun-ny! Opening with a scene that borders on the bizarre, one wonders how things could get any weirder. Just keep reading because they do! The interview transcripts taken by father and son cops, Jim and Jack, are masterpieces of deliberate miscommunication and humor. A conglomerate of people/individuals,”eight extremely anxious strangers,” are thrown together as we learn of their life-issues, problems, and reasons for anxiety. Their “hurts, secrets, and passions…are ready to boil over” as we read of a bank robbery that didn’t happen, a hostage situation, and a man in a rabbit suit.

    Backman’s story is simultaneously “humorous, compassionate, and wise.” It is an exploration of the things in human nature that “save us in the most anxious of times.” The ending is extremely satisfying, and the interconnectedness Backman brings out of the chaos at the beginning warms our hearts better than a crackling, fireplace on a cold morning.

  • SATURDAY MORNING (BUT NOT) FOR KIDS

    Funny thing, this week I didn’t read a single kid’s book, so instead, I will recommend and review a book about people who work with (and live for) kids: teachers, librarians, and principals. I listened to this one as an audiobook and had the best experience with an audiobook to date. Now I know why so many of my blogging friends like and read audiobooks.

    I definitely will look for more books by this author.

    This 2020 publication was made for me–the protagonist was a librarian in a private school located in, Galveston, Texas, thirty miles south of where I live. It was both “timely” and “uplifting,” two of the words critics and reviewers used to describe this novel. The “author’s essay at the end, “Read for Joy,” is one I intend to use in my writing class next semester as a model to emulate.

    There is tragedy in this book, both in the past and the present, but that is also the “message” the author is successfully preaching–One “should choose joy even [and especially] in difficult times.”and in the midst of tragedy.

    The quirky school librarian,Samantha, who is dealing with trauma and tragedy, both physical and emotional, is a character you will love and root for. Duncan Carpenter, the stoic, cold new principal, who was once a presence in Samantha’s life, is the love interest you’ll love to hate. The twists and turns will keep you engaged in this “novel full of hope and love” right down to the satisfactory “comforting warmth” you will experience at the end.

    This was one of my favorite “reads” so far this year.

  • Chores

    Chores

    Jen Payne's avatar

    In the long space between cars
    from the Sunday road,
    I could hear the bell buoy
    just off shore,
    the breeze from the Sound
    pushed curtains aside
    allowing a view south
    to see, from my window,
    the fall migration,
    to wonder at how things change
    so quickly and so slowly
    while I folded, carefully,
    in meditation……….and mediation
    each and every sheet
    in my possession
    the cool cottons and soft flannels,
    the cooperative flats,
    and grumbly fitteds

    housekeeping

    housekeeping

    housekeeping

    as if in the folding
    I could lose the grief,
    misplace the pain,
    find comfort in neat tucked corners
    and sweet even stacks
    knowing that they’ll return —
    the birds — in spring,
    and life goes on.

    Poem @2020, Jen Payne.

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