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 MORNING FOR KIDS

    It wasn’t that long ago, that I discovered graphic novels, becoming a fan of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. What recently took me back to my eleven-year-old fandom of Wonder Woman, my childhood hero, was some lovely graphic novels for kids sent to me by Oni Press. I had no idea the comic books of my childhood had morphed into the exciting, color-filled, motivating stories bound for today’s children. I immediately thought of reluctant readers I had taught in sixth and seventh grades many years ago. How they would have loved the current, relevant themes of Fights, the cover of which would have tempted any twelve year old boy to dive into its story! And, the hilarious cover of The Sunken Tower even made me want to see who these creatures were endangering the obvious heroes who seemed to represent more than one time period.  Even the earliest of readers would have been attracted to the adorable creatures on the cover of Dewdrop,which gave the promise of a sing-a-long, something many pre Ks would love. Thank you, Oni Press for the next few Saturday Mornings for Kids materials.

    The book I want to feature first and strongly recommend is Fun, Fun, Fun World by Yehudi Mercado. The cover alone is so colorful, and yes, Fun, that I can’t imagine any kid not wanting to take it down from the shelf and check it out. Minky, the main character serves a very demanding Queen of an outer-space kingdom, who gives him the assignment of conquering the one planet his hero-Mother was unable to acquire for the kingdom–earth. Minky’s crew and spaceship are a delight to see, and as his nemesis tries to thwart his every move, Minky and the crew encounter many adventures in their quest. The outcome of Minky’s adventure is a satisfactory one for all, and Minky’s motto is embedded in the reader’s brain, “It’s not a dream if you believe it.”

    As an an adult, I loved the Fun read. How much more would a kid enjoy it? Buy this one for your kids and grandkids. It comes out in April 2020, and would be a colorful, fun read for any kid ages seven through twelve and would certainly tempt a reluctant reader to appreciate the skill of reading. If I were still teaching kids, I’d definitely want this one in my classroom library.

  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    I am just back from a trip to Half-Price Books. Let me grab the first book off my pile of purchases and copy the first line. It is from Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss:

    “All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly above the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the winds at its summit.”

    What description! I can hardly wait to begin this one.

  • CLEAR THE SHELVES!

    My most pressing reading goal for 2020 was to clear my TBR shelves.thumbnail_PART_1520719075875_IMG_20180307_070135thumbnail_PART_1520719062438_IMG_20180307_070159

    Today was both a cloudy damp day and a “sickie” day where I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. So, I tackled my TBR shelves starting at 6:30 a.m.

    II ruthlessly decided to read the first fifty pages of the books “I might want to read sometime” that I have continued to collect, and I dove in.

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    The end result was worth it! Now a good wipe with 409 and the shelves are ready to fill again.

    What a good feeling!

  • MORE BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS, AND THIS TIME, A LIBRARIAN

    I read a large number of books about books, bookstores, libraries, librarians, and everything “bookish” last year. It was a fun indulgence and one that I really enjoyed. Recently, at our local library, I spotted a book with a “body-builder” guy lifting a huge load of books titled, The World’s Strongest Librarian. Looking closer, I read the subtitle,”A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and Family.” Josh Hanagarre, the book’s author tells his fascinating tale of how he became a librarian, manages his Tourette’s, has a fairly “normal” life with a wife and family, and is a champion weight lifter and expert at strengthening exercises.

    After I had read the first few chapters which described a happy, uneventful boyhood in a family-centered, Mormon home in Utah, I began to read of his devotion to his Mormon faith and thought, “Uh-oh, here comes a lot of Mormon propaganda.” I almost put down the book, but I’m so glad I didn’t. Told honestly and sometimes brutally, Hanagarre describes his onset of Tourette’s and his loss of faith. (No, he doesn’t miraculously get it back and everything ends happily ever after–another interesting turn of his story.) His acceptance of his disability and his control (to a degree) of it through excruciating exercises and weight lifting provides a tale of courage, perseverance,  and determination.

    Although the anecdotes about peculiar happenings and patrons of a big city library are expected, Josh’s handling of both proves he is “not your average librarian.” The book is humorous, touching, introspective, and interesting the entire way through. I am going to count this memoir as my non-fiction read for February (The Church of Small Things being  my January non-fiction read.) I had originally hoped to read 12 non-fiction books in 2020 (the same number I aimed for and exceeded in 2019), but now I am aiming for one non-fiction book per month.

    Have you read any non-fiction lately I would enjoy? Please let me know in the reply section below.

  • THE CHURCH OF SMALL THINGS: AUDIO BOOK VERSION

    Just after New Year’s, I finished Melanie Shankle’s The Church of Small Things, in hopes of fulfilling a 2020 goal of reading books recommended by blogging friends. This one was recommended by Deb Nance on her blog, Readerbuzz, as a book to improve one’s mood and uplift their spirits…and it did just that!

    The cover of the audiobook along was a delight –all hot pink and gold scroll and included everything from an elephant to a wee mouse. Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond wrote about her delight with the book in the foreword, and describes it as “dry but warm humor.” Church deals with “the small moments, the small memories, the small achievements of the author’s life, and in turn’s, helps us appreciate our own.

    Although “we live in a culture that celebrates the BIG accomplishments,” the author invites us to examine the “smallest, most ordinary acts of daily faithfulness.” For me, it reminded me to “live in the moment” and fully appreciate the everyday, smallest blessings.

    Shankle’s lists of “Things I wish I’d known (in college, when I was a kid, etc.)…” are interspersed throughout the book and are not only amusing but helpful when it comes to coping with life’s daily troubles and trials.

    I highly recommend this book. It will indeed uplift and inspire.

  • A RECENTLY COMPLETED BOOK: REVIEW

    Some time ago, I began what I thought was going to be “a typical immigrant story” on my Kindle app. I am referring to Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in 2013, it tells the story of Ifemelu and Obinze, star-crossed lovers. I began reading around last Thanksgiving (2019) and because I often overlook books “parked” on my Kindle, and because I became involved with Cybils reading demands, I forgot about the book. But I didn’t forget about the story. This past week I finished it.

    It’s fascinating peek into Nigerian culture and mindset kept me reading as Ifemelu, an exchange student at Princeton prepares to return to her native Nigeria. Obinze, her childhood best friend and “sweetheart” thinks about her imminent return in alternating chapters. Will the couple resume their early college relationship in Nigeria? Or has too much occurred in both their lives for this to happen?

    Adichie’s story easily fits the genre of Literary Fiction with its sweeping descriptions, complex character development, and the message presented by Ifemelu’s blog entires on race, set both in America and in Nigeria. As she searches for her roots, Ifemelu finds her self and her destiny. It is a darned good read, but not your usual immigrant story.

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    Today’s Tuesday Teaser is from City of Girls.city of g.jpg

    Elizabeth Gilbert has been known as a writer of non-fiction for some time, but this novel she has written is one I am really enjoying. I am choosing to copy some sentences from the part I am currently reading on page 55. Vivian, a Vassar graduate without “prospects,” is brand new to New York and to the Lily Playhouse, a small theater that provided rooms on the upper floors for struggling actors and models run by her eccentric Aunt Peg.  Celia is the show-stopping chorus girl, jaded and gorgeous, whom Vivian has never seen the likes of and greatly admires. Vivian speaks:

    “Well, then, I guess I had a roommate now. (That was fine with me, though. I was just honored that she’d chosen me.) I wanted this strange, exotic moment to last as long as possible, so I dared to make conversation…Celia settled back into the bed, lit a smoke, and told me all about her night.”

    Since I will be seeing NYC in all its glory this coming March, I am sure I’m going to enjoy this tale from its past.

  • ALPHABET SOUP 2020 CHALLENGE–AUTHOR EDITION, Letter “B”

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    Natalie Basizle’s Queen Sugar is my second choice for the Alphabet Soup Challenge for this year. It was chosen by my Page Turner’s Book Club for its February selection. Basizle wrote it in 2014, and it was the basis for an original, hit series on Oprah’s OWN Network. As critics remarked, the novel is “exquisitely written” and tells about the “joys and sorrows of family, love, endurance, and hard work.” Charley Bordelon, the owner of a sugar cane farm her father left her, certainly embodies the last two. With Micah, her eleven year old daughter, she leaves her home in LA and moves to southern Luisiana to farm the 800 acres she inherits.

    My favorite part of reading the novel was appreciating the author’s ability to form and develop “complex characters” the reader was led to empathize with. It is, as it’s cover advertises, “heartbreaking,””page-turning,” and delivers the promised “hint of bayou magic.” Miss Honey, Charlie’s grandmother; Ralph Angel, her half brother; Violet, her sister; and Hollywood, a neighbor and Ralph Angel’s high school buddy round out the cast of characters. And, what reader could ever forget the wisdom and support of her partners, an elderly African American retired sugarcane farmer and an ornery white cane farmer who has lost his spread? More than once, they saved Charley from disaster and even from herself. The villain, a white man named Landry threatens Charley early on, “Cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business.” This challenge spurs Charley on to prove him and everyone else wrong.

    Especially for a debut novel, this is a”darned good read”

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  • THE GATES OF THE ALAMO by Stephen Harrigan: A Review

    This 580 page historical novel was the Third Tuesday Book Club selection for January.      I missed the meeting, but My Better Half represented our household.  He read it first, and as a result, I didn’t quite finish it until this morning. It was one of those reads that had the reader holding their breath, turning pages as fast as possible. I had read Remembering Ben Clayton, an earlier Gulf Coast Read and book club selection by the same author. Described as “a genuinely moving epic,” Gates is an imagined account of the siege and fall of the Alamo, but much, much more. The author uses the POV of both American soldiers and Mexican attackers, things he has researched by reading letters and journals from both sides. The main characters, Mary Mott, a respected innkeeper and her sixteen-year-old son, Terrell; and Mrs. Mott’s love interest, Edmund McGowan, a naturalist in 1836 Texas, live through the perilous time before the battle as the Mexican army advances; during the battle, trapped in the old mission itself; and through the aftermath of the battle embodied in the Battle of San Jacinto, where the Texians won their independence from Mexico, shouting their battle cry, “Remember the Alamo!”

    It is a warm, sometimes humorous, tale with cameo appearances that successfully give the reader glimpses of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Travis, Sam Houston and other notables of the day. Although it is a long book, it is never boring, never without action, and never fails to make the reader care about the well-drawn characters. As the critics say about the book, it is Magnificent,” ” Fabulous,” and “Riveting.”

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS

    If R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder recommended a book, would you read it? Well, I did. Roll With It, another story of a unique kid who has a disability,  by Jamie Sumner, tells the story of Ellie, who has Cerebral Palsy, a creative, audacious pre-teen trapped in a wheelchair. Because her grandfather has Alzheimer’s, she and her mom must move from a large city to a trailer  park in a tiny town. She wants to be a professional baker, and is really good at it. Robert, who goes by Bert, an autistic kid who is bullied; and Coralee, who has big dreams of becoming a famous singer and lives below the poverty level, are her best friends. The schemes and plans this trio invents will make the reader laugh out loud. I certainly did.

    I highly recommend this book to kids with and without disabilities as a darned good read.