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.”

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS ON SATURDAY EVENING, 8/19/23

    Just as Saturday Mornings on TV back in the 50s and 60s were reserved for kids to watch cartoons, while mom and dad slept in, PWR reserves Saturday Mornings for reviews and recommendations of kids’ books.

    Everyone here on the Texas Gulf Coast has survived “back to school,” students and teachers alike. But, just think; how would you feel if going back to school was going to Witch School?

    Jane O’Conner has written a book for the “I Can Read” series put out by Harper and Row. Illustrated in a delightful way by Emily Arnold McCully, this 1987 publication deals with Witch Lulu looking forward to the first day of Witch School. At the beginning of the day, Lucy is happy and anticipating the fun she will have. Now, look at the cover of the book. Evidently her happy mood did not last, for Lucy, here, looks anything but happy. The Little Witch with the blonde, curly hair, Sandy Witch outdoes and outshines Lulu in every exercise, test, and performance in “witchy” things.

    Using simple words and easy phrases, appropriate for a beginning reader, this little book shows Lulu “less than” at everything she and Sandy attempt. The one thing that Lulu “bests” Sandy at is in the big reveal/surprise at the end.

    I loved this book as an adult, and it will entertain and encourage your child/grandchild as he/she reads to you or you read to them. I highly recommend it for back-to-school-reading.

  • FINALLY!

    My kind, techie neighbor, Courtney has designed a Facebook page for my bookstore.

    A former student’s father who owns a sign-making company took my design and made a sign for the outside of the house/bookstore.

    The conversation/visiting area is a favorite of customers, filled on Thursdays from 5-8 p.m. with laughing, sharing women on Girls’ Night.

    Most of the books are donated which allows me to price them at $1 for hard backs, fifty cents for paperbacks.

    A neighbor of Rae’s Reads makes bejeweled bookmarks to sell, often adorned with local sports teams’ logos.

    Our children’s reading room is very popular.

    Each weekend our Red Cart Specials save our patrons money. Here are CDs and DVDs ranging from 25 cents to $1. This week’s special is cookbooks–hardbacks $1, paperbacks and spiral-backs fifty cents.

    Now, friends, you have seen Rae’s Reads, my very expensive hobby and a twelve-year-dream-come-true!

  • FRIDAY FIRSTLINERS

    My book for Friday First Liners, hosted my READING IS MY SUPERPOWER is Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler.

    I am on page 67 and am thoroughly hooked, but here’s how the novel begins:

    ” The years after the Civil War were characterized by excess, ornamented by cults and corruptions…In 1872, the residents of the asylum for the insane in Steliacoom, Washington, were thrown out of their beds by earthquakes resulting from volcanic activity in the Cascade Mountains. The event was so profound it cured three of the patients instantly…shake treatments.”

    On page 67, three of the inmates have escaped and are running for freedom, taking the reader with them. I plan to read until I get sleepy.

    Photo by Bruno Thethe on Pexels.com

    RAE 8/4/23

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    PWR reserves Saturday mornings for reviews and mentions of kids’ books, much like TV programming of the 50s and 60s did. Today’s picture book is a controversial, sometimes banned book.

    When I read it, I was impressed with the life lesson it presents that sometimes it takes hard times, or in this case horrific events to bring people together and to build community. Basically, the book describes an African American boy and his mother standing at their apartment window, backlit by smoke and flames, observing rioting in their neighborhood. Forced to evacuate the building, then encounter their Asian American neighbor with whom they never had got along. The boy keeps asking neighbors if they had seen his cat, who disappeared soon after the fire started. When he asks the testy Mrs. Chin, her cat has disappeared as well. When the fire is over and the tenants are allowed to return, the two find their cats, who fought constantly before, safely curled up asleep together. And after the terrible experience of the fire, both families are also reconciled like the cats.

    A lovely story, right? WRONG! Imagine my surprise when I googled the title to find an article titled, “Smoky Night, A Misguided Effort to Help Kids Understand the Rodney King Riots.” Look at this illustration from the picture book:

    With what has now been called the “Rodney King riots” in the background, the boy asks his mom why the people are doing what they are doing, and she answers, “People get angry. They want to smash and destroy. They don’t care anymore what’s right or wrong…After a while it’s like a game.” This sounded to me like a good explanation for a little boy. However, the article mentioned above criticized this explanation because it was a white woman writing the book who did not understand the underlying causes of the riots, who indirectly described all black neighborhoods as “bad neighborhoods.” This short-sighted reason caused Smoky Night to be banned and pulled from school library shelves. Really?

    To me the excellence of the illustrations and the message of the book overall far outweighs any criticisms of the book. Depending on how you feel about social justice issues, you may want to read this book with your child/grandchild. I did enjoy the book.

  • BORROWED FROM THE BLUEBIRD OF BITTERNESS–FUNNY!

  • ANOTHER AUTHOR EVENT AT RAE’S READS

    My former interim pastor and good friend, Al Perry will read from his autobiography, My View from the Top of the Chicken Coop,

    …Sunday, July 30th at 2:00 p.m. at Rae’s Reads.

    So far, since January we have had four author events, a ladies tea, a mini-craft sale, a family music night, a pot luck dinner, a class for juniors at a nearby high school on writing a college application personal essay, a classroom shower for a former student who is starting her first teaching job this fall, and a book shower for a friend’s newly adopted sons given by the Women on Mission ladies at my church. All this occurred while I was teaching two writing classes. I have been a busy lady!

    (from my blogging friend at the “Starry Night Elf”

  • THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Varghese: A Review

    This past spring, I had the pleasure of hearing Abraham Verghese read from his latest novel, The Covenant of Water at the Inprint Series in Houston. (Thanks, Deb Nance for giving me a ride into traffic-crazy H Town.) He was simply amazing, and that night I began a book of his, The Tennis Partner (1998), which had been on my TBR shelf for more than a year. Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone, is definitely one of my favorite novelists, and I looked forward to this novel with anticipation.

    Overall, I was slightly disappointed, but I would still classify Partner as a very good read. Perhaps because it tended to be depressing, which the lives of drug addicts usually are, the story haunted me as Verghese unfolded “an elegy to friendship found and an ode to a good friend lost. ” (Boston Globe review) The writing was so edgy, so close to something that must be drawn from the author’s life experiences that I often found myself thinking I was reading a memoir or non-fiction book. It tells of David Smith, a medical student and recovering drug addict. The tennis games described were spot-on and progressed the plot along.The friendship between the two main characters is rich and complex, changing as David “spirals out of control.”

    The tennis matches, described in detail, go on and on, as does the decent into David’s inevitable outcome. I would recommend this book especially to those who understand and love the game of tennis.

  • A SERIOUS, SCIENTIFIC “TAKE” ON HAPPINESS

    Two years ago, my blogging friend, Deb Nance, of Readerbuzz, began a study of “Happiness.” Because I studied the word “gratitude the following year, she gave me her books she had bought to help me decide if happiness followed gratitude or vice versa. Our combined studies caused us to agree that gratitude doesn’t follow happiness; gratitude causes happiness. This is a brief review of one of the books she gave me:

    This is a scientific study of happiness filled with stats, case studies, and many graphs and charts. My non-linear-thinking mind was not thrilled with this book; it was a hard read for me. However, those of you who exult in science-based, argumentative reading would LOVE this book. Malcolm Gladwell (one of my favorite non-fiction authors) recommends it thusly, “If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it.” The back cover gives a better summary than I could ever write:

    “In this brilliant, witty, and accessible book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions…”

    I found myself skimming the book, ignoring the stats and tables and charts, and reading the wonderful anecdotes. It was a powerful argument presented in a style I would have loved to receive from my Advanced Writing students at UHCL. I was thoroughly convinced by the author’s many mini-arguments and appreciated his insights and mostly readable prose.

    GIVEAWAY: For a gently used copy of this book (It has been through Deb and my hands, now.) make a comment below telling why you should receive this book. Limited to USA followers only…sorry!

  • A MESSAGE FROM RAE

  • WHAT I’M READING THIS SUMMER

    One of the best parts of summer is having more time to read. Sitting on the bed air conditioner cranked up, with the fan blowing across you with a good book going helps break the spell of triple-digit heat, which is what we’re having on the Texas Gulf Coast right now.

    One of my favorite authors, Fiona Davis, whom I dare call a friend, since I knew her mother, has written another novel featuring a NYC building/landmark. The Spectacular, a 2023 publication is as excellent as her other novels and promises to be one of my favorites of her novels. (I have read them all!) I was able to get this one in large print at my local library, and what a delight this mystery/suspenseful story set in Radio City Music Hall in the 50s, has been! I am on page 297 of 477 (Remember, it is large print.) and hope to finish it this weekend.

    Another book I hope to finish this weekend, I read for my “Word for 2024–HOSPITALITY.” Open Heart, Open Home has also been a delight, a non-fiction instruction manual, complete with anecdotes from a pastor’s wife, on how to practice the art/gift of hospitality. I am an approaching the final chapter.

    A book I have started and have temporarily put down is another I’m anxious to get back to, A Woman Is No Man, a novel of a category I love–an immigrant story. I am only on page 111, but I am already hooked.

    Last, the novel of a local author, Mountains Under Her Feet, Catherine Vance, who graciously read and signed her book at Rae’s Reads, my bookstore is another I have temporarily set aside. I am ready to begin Chapter 3.

    As you can see, I have a great deal of catching up to do! Perhaps I need a Readathon; definitely, I need a Readathon. I was planning one for Labor Day, but maybe I should participate in Dewey’s 24 Hour Reverse Readathon which is coming up this weekend where one reads all night. Hmmmmm…Is anyone else participating in the Reverse Readathon? I like company during a Readathon. Let me know.


    RAE 7/19/23