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.”

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    TUESDAY TEASER, a meme hosted by The Purple Booker allows all readers to copy a line or several lines from what you are currently reading in order to “tease” another reader/blogger into reading the same book.

    Since my March trip to NYC was cancelled, I returned to Elizabeth Gilbert’s (The “G” of my alphabet challenge) to copy a few lines from where I am reading now. The protagonist is describing to a young  relative the scene where she, her mother, and her father received news of her brother’s death during WWIII.

    “Walter’s death utterly shocked me.

    I swear to you, Angela, I’d never considered for a minute that my brother could be harmed or killed in the war…He’d always been so competent, so powerful…What harm could ever befall him?”

    The novel is a fascinating one that begins after WWI and now, on page 346, a great deal has happened to “our girl”, and she is ready to return to New York with her eccentric Aunt Peg, a sadder and hopefully wiser woman.

  • NATIONAL POETRY MONTH CONTINUES

    I have been seeking to post a poem a day, either on this blog or on Literacy and Me, often drawing from blogging friends who are also poets. Some are funny, some inspiring, and some are. very timely dealing with the coronavirus or our current isolation. Today’s poem is on the lighter side: a limerick.

    This is a limerick I found back in the 70s in a student issue of Read Magazine put out by Scholastic. I don’t even know if that valuable teacher resource is available any more, but it was a lifesaver to use with my reluctant readers in both seventh and eighth grade. Here is one that “stuck with me,” and I used once when guest lecturing at a sister university:

    “There once was a student named Esser,

    Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser.

    It soon came to fall,

    He knew nothing at all.

    And now he’s a college professor!

    This is by no means a put down of professors (I am one.). Instead it allows me to make the point that if we are not willing to poke fun at ourselves, we will “suffer the outrageous slings and arrows…” (to mangle Shakespeare) and we will be so stiff and uptight, taking things personally that we will be hurt and sometimes even damaged in the teaching profession. I learned in my first 18 years of teaching that junior high is “Put Down City,” and the students’ favorite target is the teacher. I remember as a young twenty-three year old, ten years older than my students, an eighth grade girl I had become close to (too close to–I didn’t know about the necessity of keeping one’s “professional distance” in those days) had shared crushes and problems at home, etc.  with me before and after class. I thought she liked me, but one day when I came into the class, she said in front of the class, “Mrs. L, does that lipstick glow in the dark?” The class had a good laugh at my expense. This is just an example of how peer pressure can cause students to make fun of even teachers they like.

    I am blessed to have GenX’ers and Millennials this semester who are kinder and constantly reinforce my faith in the next stewards of our world. Many have reached out and asked how My Better Half and I have been doing and checking on us in general. It is heartening that I now have the kindness and respect I worked so hard to earn in my 51 years of classroom teaching. Hmmmmmm maybe I need to attempt a poem expressing my feelings about this. LOL

  • Afterwards AKA Bitter Sweet

    stephrichmond's avatarS C Richmond

    AFTERWARDS AKA. BITTER SWEET.

    COVID-19

    We emerge, blinking, into a new world. Sunshine kisses our pale skin and assaults our senses.
    Freedom feels unnatural.
    Sloth like we check our surroundings, seeing things in a new light. Suddenly appreciating the things we previously took for granted.
    Someone comes into view. We hesitate as we look at each other, we smile, still wary of getting too close, but wanting to engage. We allow each other to pass. Emotions overlap, it will take time for the fear to leave us.
    We cry a little, sorrow for the human race.
    We keep walking. Taking in businesses that are still locked down. Will they ever return or are they too just blinking and feeling their way into a new world.
    There are few people around, leaving towns looking post apocalyptic. The eerie silence is deafening. In the distance, the sound of an engine, but no…

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  • 4 – Pandemic Pause

    4 – Pandemic Pause

    Today’s poem

    Jen Payne's avatar

    The construct of time

    in our pandemic pause

    is such that my computer

    now tells me the day —

    in small letters the date, too —

    and the hours move by

    so slowly we seem suspended,

    teetering here on trust

    that the sun begins the day still,

    and the dark is when we rest

    and dream of crowds of people

    — or that one we adore — before

    the sun rises on another day as is

    but another day closer, too

    and find in that somewhere: Joy.

    Right before the world shut down, I was working with photographer Joy Bush to promote her new exhibit at City Gallery in New Haven. We had a phone call scheduled, so I set my phone alarm: 8:50AM, Joy. That’s what inspired today’s poem. You can check out Joy’s thoughtful work on her website: www.joybushphotography.com.

    ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing…

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  • FRIDAY FIRST LINERS

    Hoarding Books began this fun meme, asking us on Fridays to copy the first line of what we are currently reading. Who doesn’t like to be inspired? Here is the first line of the first inspirational thought from Mark Nepo’s Things That Join the Sea and the Sky:

    ” Often we’re cast about by the noise of the world and the noise in our heads.”

    Each segment gives a thought about what motivates us, causes us to fear, causes us to overcome, or helps us find some inner strength. It is a book one reads very slowly, savoring each morsel and nugget of truth, beauty, and grace. I’m going to be enjoying this one for some time to come.

  • It’s National Poetry Month!

    It’s National Poetry Month!

    Jen Payne's avatar

    Happy National Poetry Month! Here at Random Acts of Writing, we’re going to be writing a poem a day — #NaPoWriMo — so check back daily! But did you know that National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996? Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture. Here are 30 ways you can participate…

    1. Sign-up for Poem-a-Day and read a poem each morning.

    2. Sign-up to receive a free National Poetry Month poster, or download the PDF, and display it for the occasion.

    3. Read last year’s most-read poem, Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness.”

    4. Record yourself reading a poem, and share why you chose that work online using the hashtag #ShelterinPoems. Be sure to tag @poetsorg on twitter and instagram!

    5. Subscribe to…

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  • THURSDAY THOUGHTS

    Today is day two of National Poetry Month. Here is today’s poem, another coffee poem, this time a parody:

    STOPPING BY STARBUCKS ON A SNOWY EVENING (with apologies to Robert Frost)

    by Paul Fisher

    Whose beans these are I think I know.

    They’re ground to brew and packed to go.

    No one will see me stopping here.

    To warm my gut with mugs of Joe.

     

    The head barista’s feeling queer

    From many shots of black liqueur.

    She’s had much more than she can take

    Of serving scones and coffee cake.

     

    She gives her mocha hair a shake

    To tell me there is no mistake.

    The only other sound’s the sweep

    Of credit cards and change she makes.

     

    Her latte’s lovely, dark and deep,

    But I have lines to rhyme, then break.

    And miles to go before I wake,

    And miles to go. before I wake.

     

    I don’t know about you, but this little coffee parody has awakened me as I sip my second cup of java Joe.

  • 1 – Level Up!

    1 – Level Up!

    April 1st, today, is the beginning of National Poetry Month. Here is a great poem from blogging friend, Jen Payne.

    Jen Payne's avatar

    He was a giant black dog

    wooly from toes to eyes

    — if he had them —

    and every morning

    on my way to school

    at the end of the street

    he would race down his driveway

    …..growling

    ………..non-stop

    ……………full speed

    ………………..and full bark

    full enough to scare anyone

    most especially my 11-year-old self

    who hadn’t quite figured out

    what to do with her monsters yet

    except run, run, run.

    Then His name is Sam,

    a voice yelled from a dark, dusty window

    in the gray house set back from the road,

    Sam, it rolled down the driveway

    and across my path, a magic coin,

    a power token, password — SAM

    and I knew exactly what to do!

    The next morning, I bravely stood,

    hands on hips and waited

    David me for Goliath he

    at the end of his driveway

    waited and waited and…

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  • Rest in Peace, Tomie dePaola

    SAD NEWS

    Carla's avatarCarla Loves To Read

    Image may contain: 1 person, closeup

    Sad News. Tomie dePaola, groundbreaker in the field of children’s literature, artist, storyteller, mentor to a generation of children’s book artists died on Thursday as a result of a head injury.
    Perhaps best known for his telling of Strega Nona, Tomie also wrote and illustrated the groundbreaking Oliver Button is a Sissy. Generations of families coped with grieving sharing Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs. His early chapter book memoir 26 Fairmont Avenue is the perfect mentor text for emergent readers and writers to tell their own stories. We ask that you share a story, light a candle, read one of his books aloud.

    Thomas Anthony “Tomie” dePaola was an American writer and illustrator who had created more than 260 children’s books such as Strega Nona. He received the Children’s Literature Legacy Award for his lifetime contribution to American children’s literature in 2011.

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  • Calm Down

    Calm Down

    Jen Payne's avatar

    calm down
    what happens
    happens mostly
    without you

    — JOSEF ALBERS

    Poem and image, Homage to the Square: Blue & Green, by Josef Albers.

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