powerfulwomenreaders

RAE’S READS

about

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

May 15, 2020

This Saturday Morning for Kids I introduce a week-long series, “Tween Treasures.” Each day from Saturday, May 16th until Saturday, May 23rd, I will recommend and write a short review of a book that appeals to ages 10-14. Many of these are books I came across in 2019 as a Cybils Award First Round Reader; others are from donations to or purchases for my Little Free Library.

The first Tween Treasures recommendation for Saturday, May 16th is The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel. It involves a boarding school secret society where Emmy’s father supposedly disappeared when he was a student at the school and the efforts she and her friends make to solve the mystery.

This was a suspenseful read even for an adult, and when it’s a kid and it’s your father that had gone missing, well, let’s just say there’s a great deal at stake. Emmy’s ingenuity and perseverance even in the face of danger made her one of my favorite protagonists in my Cybils’s Reader assignment.
FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

May 15, 2020

First Line Fridays are featured by two hosts, Hoarding Books and Wandering Words. Check out their blogs for their Friday Firstliners. In the meantime, here is mine for Friday, May 15th from John Huston’s Sleepless.

“Park watched the homeless man weave in and out of the gridlocked midnight traffic on LaCienga, his eyes fixed on the bright orange AM/FM receiver dangling from the man’s neck on the black nylon lanyard.”

Stuck in traffic is a common occurrence, but the reason for the delay and gridlock at midnight, of all times, is unique to this novel. My Better Half has been encouraging me to read this book for months, and the time to begin is now! He liked it well enough to recommend it to his bookclub, so I know I’m in for a good way to spend this rainy, stormy Friday afternoon.
“J” and “K” ALPHABET SOUP CHALLENGE 2020

May 15, 2020

Learning to teach on line has put me behind on this challenge, so I have read two children’s chapter books for letters “J” and “K.”

The Doughnut King by Jessie Janowitz is a book I would recommend to/for reluctant readers, especially boys in grades 6-8. Tris Levin’s family moves from NYC to Petersville, due to a family situation. A dying small town, Petersville is very different from New York. Tris, a middle schooler, whose talent is baking, begins a donut business and puts some new energy into the town’s economy. Will Petersville disappear forever, or can Tris’s entrepreneurship save the day? This is a 2019 publication and should be available wherever books are ordered.

“K” stands for Amy Sarig King’s The Year We Fell from Space, which is the story of Liberty and her little sister Jilly who see and discover a meteorite. Is this a sign from the Universe that their mom and dad will get back together after a recent divorce? Will the family fall apart like something that fell from outer space, or will the efforts of the sisters make a difference? The answer might be surprising. It definitely is satisfying. This book was also published in 2019.

For letter “L,” I am continuing to read Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile which I’ve had to return to the library, but I have requested it again, and may have to finish it out of order. Later today, I will search my TBR shelves for my selection for the letter “M.” Does”M” mean I’m halfway through the alphabet? I’m hoping to finish this challenge by the end of the year.

Until next time…READ ON!
TUESDAY TEASER

May 12, 2020

The idea is to copy a sentence or two from a book you are reading and “tease” other readers into reading the same book. My book this Tuesday is one that was donated to my Little Free Library, The Mouse of Amherst by Elizabeth Spires and illustrated by Claire A. Nivola. It tells of a mouse who lives in Emily Dickinson’s house and “helps” her write her poetry.

“I am a mouse, a white mouse. My name is Emmaline. Before I met Emily, the great poet of Amherst, I was nothing more than a cheese nibbler, a mouse-of-little-purpose. There was an emptiness in my life that nothing seemed to fill.”

This may be classified as a children’s book (recommended by a local private school for ages 9+), but its delightful text and special illustrations make it a must for a lit major like me. One of the poems “inspired” by Emmaline when Emily introduces herself starts like this:

“I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you–nobody–too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d banish us you know!

How dreary–to be–Somebody!

How public–like a Frog–

To tell your name–the livelong June–

To an admiring Bog!”

Emily Dickinson
TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY OF CHILDREN’S BOOK WEEK

May 9, 2020

In honor of Children’s Book Week, May 4-10, I am offering a longer version of Saturday Mornings for Kids

And a big thank you to Carla of Carla Loves to Read for the awesome logo!

The books I am recommending today are all Cybils contenders from last year for grades 5-8, grades I am familiar with because I teach 5th graders in Sunday school, and I also spent nearly twenty years teaching 6th-8th graders in Alvin Public Schools in what seems like another lifetime ago. Here we go with the recommendations:

Pay Attention Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt had the most grabbing gimmick as its opening of all 200+ books I read for Cybils. It begins on a dark, stormy night with a pounding on the front door. When Carter opens the door, there, drenched on the mat is…A BUTLER! This “Jeeves” type character is sent to help out a frantic mom and her four kids, who are experiencing hard times. With his butler, Carter is able to “save the day” and save the future of the world as we know it. Hilarious!

On a more serious note, Melanie Sumrow’s The Prophet Calls is a thought-provoking look at New Mexico polygamy. Gentry Forrester, the young protagonist has to save herself and her family from The Prophet and his teachings and control.

Set across the world in India, The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman is also very thought-provoking. Runaways from a poverty-stricken, abusive home must make their way in a city inhabited by “slavers.” This story was inspired by children the author met in India.

On Snowden Mountain by Jeri Watts deals with 12 year old Ellen’s difficulties during WWII. Her father is away and her mother is severely depressed, leading to Ellen and her mother having to live with Aunt Pearl, a hard, demanding woman.

Finally, Where the Heart Is by Jo Knowles, an author I’ve read before, addresses diversity in an outright manner. Basically, it is a look at the emotions and impressions of 13 year old Rachel, who is dealing with multiple family problems as she deals with the inner questioning of whether she even likes boys.

All of these are books that deal with the questions and issues their target audience deals with on a daily basis, if not for themselves, vicariously with their family members and friends. Isn’t it good to have authors who are not afraid to address the issues parents and teachers are sometimes uncomfortable discussing? These books are a good “jumping off places” to begin such conversations with simple questions of “What did you think of the book?” or “What was the book about?”
What He Said

May 5, 2020

“This is a challenging and solemn time in the life of our nation and world. A remorseless invisible enemy threatens the elderly and vulnerable among us, a disease that can quickly take breath and life. Medical professionals are risking their own health for the health of others, and we’re deeply grateful. Officials at every level are setting out the requirements of public health that protect us all, and we all need to do our part.

The disease also threatens broader damage, harm to our sense of safety, security and community. The larger challenge we share is to confront an outbreak of fear and loneliness, and it is frustrating that many of the normal tools of compassion, a hug, a touch, can bring the opposite of the good we intend. In this case, we serve our neighbor by separating from them. We cannot allow physical separation to become emotional isolation. This…

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Just wanted to share

May 2, 2020

Carla Loves To Read

Something to think about

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2020 READING CHALLENGES UPDATE

May 2, 2020

Looking back, I had planned to simplify my 2020 Reading Challenges by taking on only two big ones, whittling down my TBR shelves and accepting Dollycas’s 2020 Alphabet Soup Challenge, author edition. As far as the two shelves go, by March, I had read or passed along all but 15 books and I deemed the first challenge completed. Then, I bought books from Amazon, Thrift Books and anybody who was selling because the library closed, and I went into hoarding mentality. Once again, I have books and books and books to look over and read on a shelf in my book closet and a shelf in my office. I will not even think about weaning out these books until the new year starts.

The Alphabet Soup Challenge for 2020 has gone better–until I started grading on line and giving assignments on line, and generally keeping up with and holding the hands of panicked students who “didn’t sign up for this”! If I had only taken on one class as I usually do; 23 students are manageable; 46 are not. Teaching has become an individualized effort, and I defy anyone to show me a prof who can teach writing better on line than in a face to face classroom! Anyway, because of limited reading time, I am only on the letter “J,” and the year is nearly half gone.

I also challenged myself to read 20 books I had seen mentioned or read reviews on on Blogging friends’ posts. So far I have read approximately four or five, so that needs to be spurred on as well. I continue to read Books about Books and try to read some non-fiction, something I only rate “Needs Improvement” on. I did observe, in a limited way, National Poetry Month and National Autism Awareness Month in April–but not nearly on the scale I had planned. Covid-19 took out my Celebration of Poetry prospects at the local public library, and there just wasn’t enough reading time for a serious look into autistism. Oh well, there’s always next year…sigh!
MAY IS SHORT STORY MONTH

May 1, 2020

I haven’t read a good book of short stories since receiving Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City two Christmases ago. So, in honor of National Short Story Month, I selected a book of short stories, Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint that had been donated to me for my Little Free Library to read for the occasion. I was attracted to the cover which showed a pale, strange-looking young woman, barefoot, levitating above a coastal shore. It turned out to be, as the cover advertised, full of “myth, music, and magic.”

It is a book of urban fantasy or urban legends about otherworldly creatures who live among us in our villages, cities, and towns. Described as “neither a novel or a simple gathering of short stories…it is a cycle of urban myths and dreams, of passions and sorrows, romance and force woven together to create a tapestry of interconnected dramas, interconnected lives–[a] kind of magic…” The author’s style is poetical and magical–“twilight dreams [woven out of ] language and music.” Characters appear and disappear, popping up in one story, then another like old friends walking through the mists and fogs of our reading. It is not just escape reading but “deep mythic literature of our time.” The words and phrases and the unique characters: Jilly, the artist who “believes in magic;” Professor Bramley and his manservant Goon, a gnomelike figure; and the inhabitants of the music clubs, waterfronts, and alleyways of “… anywhere, anywhen… ” exist together in a time and place which suspends the reader’s imagination and beliefs with an otherworldly effect. One doesn’t just read the book, she experiences it.
MAY IS GET CAUGHT READING MONTH

May 1, 2020

One of the most popular characters at my Little Free Library is caught reading, or rather being read to.My cat, Freesia, loves to be read to.

Who will you catch reading this month? Will someone catch you with a book in your hand? Get Caught Reading was a big deal in the primary school where I volunteered, and students were randomly photographed during candid moments when they were engrossed in reading. Their pictures were then posted.

Grab your camera and post in the comments a photo of someone you catch reading or someone reading to someone else. Most importantly, GET CAUGHT READING THIS MONTH!