Olympics and Books

February 8, 2026

Today was all about the Olympics and finishing my book (which I really enjoyed and recommend!)

Book Nook

February 2, 2026

There is just something so inviting about a cozy little book nook. Everytime I see this space in my house it makes me happy.

First Books of 2024

January 13, 2024

I set my reading goal at 30 books this year, an increase of two books over last year. These were the first two entries for 2024. I enjoyed parts of both books, but didn't fall in love with them. I am also trying to do better about not holding onto to books I don't absolutely love when I read them, so I am currently trying to figure out just who I believe I know who will enjoy these next so that I can pass them on. It it really a lot of fun to play book matchmaker.

How is This 2022?

January 30, 2022

I have noticed, over the past few months, that there has been a greater push for the banning of books, or the pulling of books from the school libraries and reading lists.  The idea of challenging books is not new; there have always been groups of people who deem it their 'responsibility' to shield the children of our society from ideas they decide are unacceptable or inappropriate.  The problem of course, is that one group of people deciding what is appropriate for all children to have access to means that they are by default denying SOMEONE ELSE'S children that access.  You don't want to let your child read The Great Gatsby?  Well, by all means, don't have your child read it.  You don't want your kid to have access to The Hate U Give?  That is your prerogative.  You think your child isn't mature enough for the themes in The Handmaid's Tale?  Fair enough.  You know your kid. Don't have them read it.  But to decide for your child, and mine, and everyone else's in the community that somehow your child's maturity and your own sensitivity or perception of the world is the litmus test by which all books should be assessed?  No.  Absolutley not.  How is it possible that in the year 2022 we are seeing a resurgence of this pompous, righteous attitude, supported by people in power in our communities?  Literature is meant to elicit empathy, anger, love, joy, sadness.  It is meant to show us who we are as humans--the strong resilient side, the compassionate side, and yes, even the ugly side.  It's meant to challenge us to think about they ways in which we as humans have grown, have persevered, have connected--and it's meant to show us how we have hurt one another, how we have unjustly profited from or abused people.  We cannot ignore the dark side of humanity and hope to avoid it rising its ugly head again.  We cannot truly celebrate all that is beautiful in humanity if we cannot see what we must rise above.  We are both there in the mirror, and that doesn't go away if the mirror is cast aside.  We only conquer what we want to fight against in our society if we can drag it out into the open, dig in deep and examine it closely, and strip it of its power.  

A Life of Leisure?

 January 26, 2022

One of the most important avenues to becoming a critical reader is simply to read more, and to read a variety of styles, voices, and subjects. The more ideas and perspectives we come into contact with, the more we are able to really understand our own perspectives and the way in which we choose to situate ourselves in our beliefs and understanding of the world.  It’s crucial.  Those who are not good, mindful readers–of texts, of media, of people–are simply at the mercy of whatever perspective they encounter.  They are helpless against tricks and rhetorical arguments they can’t see through or don’t have enough experience to critically navigate.

Sadly, though, in our society we deem reading a leisure sport–a pastime for the lazy or those lacking a solid work ethic.  Reading, unless assigned by a teacher or a professor, is something we do only if all of our other tasks and chores have been completed, which as we know, is never.  We even admonish ourselves for taking the time to read when dishes need to be done, or when the gutters need to be cleaned, or any number of other tasks need attending to, both significant and menial.  The list never ends. Because reading entails a still body, it seems a luxury, a lavish expenditure of time to sit and read.  To contemplate.  We celebrate a body in motion, one that is constantly doing.  Why is the turning of the mental wheels considered any less important?  At what point did enriching and enhancing the mind become the low priority?  Why do we make ourselves feel guilty–or allow others to make us feel guilty for spending time reading?

A Treasure Trove of Books

 January 24, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

My tendency toward book hoarding might very well have begun when I was the very young age of seven or eight.  I enjoyed reading, but probably loved all subjects equally at that age–I hadn’t really seen a front-runner emerge in terms of academic interests.  However, a random instance of the right place at the right time probably went a long way toward tipping the scales.

My brother and I were bus riders.  Our parents worked, so we clamored on the neighborhood school bus at the end of each day and got deposited some four or five blocks from our house.  We walked the rest of the way home alongside a handful of other kids from our block, with Gary tasked with making sure I didn’t get lost on the way.

Several weeks after walking the familiar route home, one day we saw a giant orange dumpster parked in front of one of the houses a couple of blocks from our house.  I don’t know why the first instinct of a couple of the boys was to climb up and peek in since we all knew that dumpsters were for trash,  but I suppose they thought they might be lucky and find an old discarded baseball glove or deflated basketball, or even an old broomstick handle that they could fashion into a makeshift sword to wield at the rest of us for fun.

The big dumpsters have metal ladders permanently affixed to the side.  The curious boys scrambled up and surveyed the possibilities.  One by one they climbed back down, scowling in disappointment. Gary asked what they had seen.  “Worthless!” one of the boys grumbled.  “The whole thing is filled with old books!”  My ears perked up.  Gary’s did too.  He climbed up.

“They’re right, Donna! Tons of books!”  He disappeared down into the dumpster and scoured the titles.  He came back down with a few.  I begged him to let me find some books too, and he told me I could as long as I was careful.  I could barely contain my excitement. Once I reached the top of the ladder my eyes were greeted with a veritable treasure trove.  Hundreds and hundreds of books had been tossed in–paperbacks, hardbacks, westerns, romance, classics–as far as the eye could see.  Some of them were missing book jackets or had torn pages, some of them were well-worn and others were in much better condition.  It was as if an entire library had been upended into the dumpster.  I reached down and picked up a book or two to read the back of the dust jacket to see which ones I wanted to take.  I got a little mired in indecision.  How could I just pick a few?

Gary grew impatient.  He started yelling at me to get back out of the dumpster so that we could get home and have our afternoon snack.  Although he was excited by getting a ‘new’ book or two, he wasn’t about to give up milk and cookies because of it.  I told him I was having a hard time deciding.  He said I could just grab a couple now and we could bring a bag the next day and take several more.  That seemed reasonable.  I took two that I had been contemplating and climbed my way back out of the dumpster.  I was thrilled.  Books, for free?  With the prospect of seemingly infinitely more tomorrow?  I’m quite sure that I skipped all the way home, unable to contain my joy.

The next day, I anticipated mining the mountain of books all day long.  Gary and I had both brought bags from home to fill.  After school, we walked quickly toward our intended destination.  We rounded the corner to the street with the dumpster.  It was gone!  All of my excitement was crushed.  Whoever had scheduled the dumpster to be delivered to the house had apparently already had it sent away, presumably to the local dump.  What a waste!  What a travesty!  I had been THISCLOSE to having more books than I could possibly carry, and that dream was dashed in an instant.  Never mind that most of those books were not likely books that would hold the interest and imagination of a seven-year-old.  But the hope that maybe they were…it was heartbreaking.  The books had been there, and then they vanished.  

Years later, and more books than I can possibly count later, I have become something of a book hoarder.  I haven’t read all of my books, though I’ve read many of them, and the fact that I own books I’ve yet to read certainly doesn’t stop me from buying new ones when a new title or storyline piques my interest.  I can only imagine that when I see a new book that speaks to me, whispers its possibilities in my ear, there’s a seven-year-old girl whispering in my other ear, “Take it now while you can!  Who knows if it will still be here tomorrow?”

Anyone Remember the Movie Ice Castles?

 January 22, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

When I was in sixth grade, we had a competition for reading in my class.  My district was very competition-driven.  My teacher, who was a hiking fanatic, had a giant butcher paper, snow-capped mountain covering the wall behind his desk, and each student was represented by a tiny push pin with our names affixed like tiny banners.  We had a goal of a certain number of books to read by the end of the semester, and each week our little push pins would journey farther up the mountain in increments that correlated to the numbers of books we had read. The first person to meet their reading goal would summit the mountain and earn a prize.

The prize was one I can’t imagine being awarded in this day and age, but seemed perfectly reasonable then.  Our teacher would take the winner out for dinner and a movie in the theater.  The movie would be of our choosing.  As I said, our school was very competitive, and in particular there was a boy named Derek Woolverton in my class with whom I had the fiercest–although friendly–competition. We were both in the top reading group, and each of us was determined to summit the mountain first.  We read voraciously through the semester and maintained a neck-and-neck race all throughout.  There was another student who joined us at the top of the pack, and ultimately, the three of us summited in the same week.  There was a three-way tie for first place.  Our teacher decided it was only fair that all three of us would share the prize.

We debated  about the movie we would get to see.  Derek was loudly advocating for Star Wars.  I was not much interested.  I wanted to see Ice Castles, a love story about a competitive skater who overcomes tragedy with the help of her dedicated boyfriend.  I was able to sway our other competitor to my side, and Ice Castles won.  I am sure that our teacher would probably rather have seen Star Wars, but he allowed us to diplomatically decide among the three of us, rather than weighing in himself.

I don’t remember where we went to dinner that night, but getting to go out in the evening to a movie theater with my teacher and two classmates was a true reward.  Going to the theater at all was a rare treat back then. We felt like classroom celebrities–kind of a big deal when you are only ten years old.  Once there, we got a big bucket of popcorn to share and allowed ourselves to be enveloped by the darkness of the theater.  The music swelled, and the film came to life.  We were entranced–even Derek, who was won over by the experience and didn’t hold it against us that he wasn’t sitting in the theater watching Star Wars.

It was the days before the internet, and Nextflix, and the likes of HBO.  When we did watch films or television shows, it was almost always on the small screen on one of the three channels available to us at the time.  A real, larger-than-life movie was a novelty, and although I was engrossed in the film and it made me cry in all the places it was designed to tug at my heartstrings (yes, even back then I was an emotional and sentimental girl), one of the things that I can distinctly remember was that there was so much swearing.  It was a rated PG movie, but it was a 1970s PG, which meant PG encompassed a whole lot more language, nudity, and violence than the films of today.  This was even before the PG-13 designation came along, so the net was even wider for films that fell into this PG category.  I can remember clearly that it was almost as though there were two sides of myself watching–the one absolutely enjoying the storyline and the whole experience I had earned, and the other side that was very definitely worried that our teacher would get in trouble for bringing three young, impressionable kids to this movie.  My own parents didn’t swear at home, and this movie was probably the most swearing I had ever heard in a concentrated two hour block.  Although I wasn’t offended by it, I thought perhaps if my parents knew, they would get angry.

Ultimately, when I got dropped off at home and my mom asked me if I had enjoyed the evening, I told her all about it–sans the swearing.  She smiled and told me she was glad I had had a good time, and that she was proud of me for earning the reward, and then she sent me to bed.  It was late, and there was school in the morning.  The movie and the experience remained a treasured memory for me for a very long time, and the film remained one of my favorites for several years.  I had already been a dedicated reader by the time that competition came along, but being celebrated for it even further cemented my life-long love for it.

How Did I Get Here?

 January 18, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

You never really recognize the unusual circumstances you might find yourself in if you have nothing with which to compare that circumstance.  When I moved from Garden Grove to Clovis, California in the fourth grade, the discrepancy between the two schools was something that would inform my life and place me on a trajectory I might possibly never have traveled otherwise.

I loved school, and in my early elementary days I was a good student. I was the kind of student most teachers enjoy having: quiet, compliant, relatively intelligent, and a people pleaser.  What’s not to like? I caused no one any trouble, nor did I ever raise any alarms, neither behaviorally nor academically. I was the kind of kid that made a teacher feel good about herself, because I was a ‘success’ under her tutelage.

In Garden Grove, we had a specialized Reading Lab.  Once a week, our teachers could schedule time to go in and rotate through various stations designed to grab our interest and attention.  There was a variety of machines, presumably state-of-the-art at the time (but which would now be seen as amusing relics of the past), on which we could take turns playing games, challenging ourselves to speed reading,  and creating art to signify short stories we read.  We clamored around the stations and excitedly awaited our turns at each.  Reading Lab was seen as a privilege, and it was one that could be taken away if the class misbehaved during the week.  It was a powerful incentive; we thought when we were in the Reading Lab we were getting away with playing during school hours, instead of what many saw as enduring the tedium of the classroom. Little did we know that our teachers knew something we didn’t; having the reward of self-selected and self-directed reading was one of the most powerful learning tools at their disposal.

Reading at my elementary school in Garden Grove wasn’t celebrated or made to feel unique or even aspirational.  It was simply part of the culture of the school.  As far as I know, our teachers didn’t preach about how important reading was, or how we needed to excel in it if we intended to succeed in life.  We just lived it.  It was understood.

In the middle of fourth grade, I moved to Clovis and started just after Christmas break.  Naturally, on my first day my teacher needed to assess my abilities and skills.  She needed to know what I knew already, and where I would need support.  At the beginning of the day, she sat me down to run through a series of diagnostic reading tests.  I found them to be almost comically simple at first, and even as we progressed through the levels I flew through each one, missing no responses.  My teacher was impressed.  She continued with the assessments until I had reached the highest level, which still posed no challenge.  She showered me with praise and her wide smile gave me all the feedback I needed.  I felt like a genius, and she looked like she had won the lottery with her new student.  I was going to like this new school.  In my old school I was a good student, as I said, but as far as I knew, nothing remarkable.  This new teacher seemed to think there was something special about my aptitude for reading and vocabulary.

I rode on that emotional high throughout the morning.  We went to lunch (where the cutest, friendliest boy was ‘assigned’ to help me navigate the cafeteria and the playground, which he did with charm and a willing attitude), and once the bell rang to return to classes, I found where my classmates were congregated to follow them back to our room.  That’s when the trouble began.

Since I started in January, classroom routines and procedures were already well-established and ingrained in the students.  They all knew that after lunch they would silently file in, sit in their seats, and await the next task.  I found my way back to my seat and waited silently with them as my teacher efficiently passed row by row to deposit an assignment on each desk.  Without saying a word, she moved from the last student’s desk to her own, picked up a timer, and elaborately set it.  “You have three minutes.  Go!” Her voice was loud and abrupt, breaking through the silence.

My classmates ducked their heads and began furiously scribbling.  The only sound in the room was the sound of pencils on paper.  I looked down at my own paper.  On it were rows and columns of boxes with numbers and ‘X’s in each one.  I sat staring, not moving. “What am I supposed to do with this,” I thought, bewildered, “and why on earth is the alphabet mixed in with the numbers?”  In fourth grade at my old school, I had not yet been introduced to multiplication, and certainly not to the very competitive, speed-driven 3 minute Math Facts exercise that was so popular in my new district.  I couldn’t begin to fathom what I was supposed to do with 3 ‘x’ 4, let alone know how to do it in a speedy fashion.

I am a people-pleaser at my core.  I had never encountered a situation where I was utterly at a loss in school, and I was horrified that the teacher who was singing my praises earlier that morning was going to be disappointed in my complete lack of ability to understand the task at hand.  I was also a relatively shy kid, and being new, I was reluctant to simply tell my teacher I was confused.  It was humiliating.  So I did the only thing I could think of.  I lifted the lid of my desk quietly and pretended to search the inside of it for a pencil, presumably to be able to get my Math Facts done alongside the rest of my classmates.  Tears had sprung to my eyes and I couldn’t keep them from rolling down my hot cheeks, so I tucked myself further and deeper into the desk.  It didn’t occur to me that the sight of me hiding under the lid of my desk wasn’t nearly as discrete and clandestine as I thought it would be.  Within seconds my teacher was kneeling at my side, trying to quietly lure me back out from inside the desk.  She seemed surprised and concerned to find me crying.  “What’s the matter, Donna? Are you okay?”  I explained to her that I had no idea what this paper was on my desk, or what to do with it.  “It’s multiplication,” she said quietly, as if that was all the explanation needed.  I blinked at her, a blank stare indicating the words meant nothing to me.  “You don’t know your times tables?”  Continued blank stare. A slight shaking of my head.  She went over to her desk and pulled out a little study sheet to help me learn them.  I thought that perhaps she was rethinking her earlier assessment of me as a star pupil.  Math would be my undoing–in my eyes and in hers.

My old school was apparently pretty advanced in the teaching of reading–and woefully nonchalant about teaching math.  My new school, though they took reading seriously, was much more enamored of math, from the very early grades.  Being able to score 100% on a 100-problem math facts sheet (front and back!) in the three-minute time frame was a badge of honor.  Naturally, it took a very long time before I was able to catch up to my classmates and achieve that benchmark. From my very first day in my fourth-grade classroom, I started to see myself as a star reader, and a sub-par math student.   Before I had only ever seen myself as a student.  The distinction wasn’t really anything having to do with me–I hadn’t suddenly grown as a reader or lost I.Q. points as a math scholar between schools.  It had everything to do with the focus each school had placed on the different subjects, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time.   But on that day, a divide began to grow between my reading and my math-oriented selves.  When we experience success at something, we have a positive connection to it, and it makes us want to do more of it.  When we experience failure, we often avoid the very thing where we feel we failed.  After that day in elementary school, I wanted to read often, and as much as I could.  I felt validated, strong.  I continued to get positive reinforcement from my teachers and my peers for my reading ability.  I tried to engage in math as little as possible, because I associated it with that feeling of confusion and helplessness.  The more I read, the better I got, and not giving that same kind of attention to studying math, I did not grow at the same rate.  I fed what I perceived to be already strong, and reinforced that reading and language were the subjects for which I was best suited.  Years later, I find it no wonder that my chosen path was to become an English teacher.

And yet…I have always wondered what would have happened if I had not changed schools.  What would have happened if I had continued on the same path, feeling right on par with my classmates in both of those core subjects?  What if I had never gone to a school where suddenly the differences in my schools had instead translated to a difference in my own ability–to myself and to my teachers?  I think I still would have enjoyed reading had I remained at my first school, but would I have thrown all of my concentration into that subject because that’s where I found comfort and solace?  Would I have ever encountered a time when my math abilities were a disappointment at my former school, or would I have continued to give my studies in math equal weight, as I would not have shifted my perception of myself as a math student?  That single day, decades ago, defined a part of me, and every step I took thereafter solidified and reinforced that definition, without me having realized it.

Genres that Shaped My Early Reading Self

 January 17, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

When I was an elementary student, there were a lot of phases I went through in terms of genres I read.  The earliest I can remember was probably humorous poems.  I remember being introduced to a poem by my second-grade teacher called “The Backwards Poem”.  I can still recite it to this day.  It began, “One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.”  My little primary school brain thought it to be a very clever poem, and I sought out other humorous poets, like Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss.  The sing-song nature of these poems was infectious and delightful to me. I loved the musicality and the rhythm in them.  I’m sure my mother, on the other hand, got tired of hearing me say, “Hey Mom–listen to this one!” over and over again while she was trying to cook dinner and clean up after five young children every night.

About this time I was also very invested in comic books.  Most specifically, I loved the Archie comics, but I also read a fair share of Daffy Duck, Richie Rich, and a wide variety of superhero comics.  I don’t know when I first got ahold of one of those brightly colored magazines that told the antics of Archie and the gang, but I do know that I associated those comics with trips to visit my grandparents.  Every year my parents would pile all five of their California kids into the back of our 1970’s Plymouth Station Wagon and we would make the long trek across five states to visit Grandma and Grandpa Mayes for a white Christmas.  Although it didn’t always snow, most years it did, and it was magical for kids who lived in Garden Grove, California, where the winters consisted of only slightly chilly temperatures in the deep of winter.  In order to occupy us on those long drives–it must have been quite the undertaking to drive five kids under 11 halfway across the country–my mom gave us some of our Christmas presents early.  Anything that could entertain us on the road became an early gift:  comic books, Colorforms, Rubic’s cubes (for the older kids), baby dolls, toy trucks, or anything that didn’t have too many pieces and didn’t make noise.  Comic books were one of the favorites.

In my later elementary years, I found mythology.  There was a copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology that I must have checked out and re-read five or six times during my fourth-grade year. I was fascinated by the capricious ways the gods manipulated humans and each other.  They were often temperamental and fickle, but just as frequently cunning and creative, and sometimes sympathetic.  It was my first real glimpse of characters with depth and multi-faceted personalities.  The Dick and Jane readers we had when I was learning to read didn’t have motive or struggle or conflict; that simply wasn’t their purpose.  But these mythological stories were not only meant to teach lessons; they intended to be entertaining and engaging, and they were.  It wasn’t until much later that I learned that what I thought of as ‘mythology’ was only one set–albeit a well-known set–of cultural myths handed down from generation to generation.  Learning the Greek myths weren’t the only kinds of cultural mythologies was one of my initial epiphanies that societies often privilege one voice over all others, and that seeing those other voices and stories and cultures was an act of stepping outside of one’s own experience in the world to learn about others.  In order to learn about other cultures’ mythologies, I had to go out of my way to find them.

In fifth grade, I found my way into fairy tales.  It was a natural progression from the mythological stories I had been reading.  I don’t mean the Disney versions of the tales, I mean the dark and sometimes gruesome stories of the Brothers Grimm.  Again, my school library was the home of a giant book of these tales, and after having checked out this book a couple of times to read, I saw that there was another book, similar in size and content.  I started digging into the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson.  The horrifying “The Red Shoes” and the ridiculous “The Emperor’s New Clothes” were among my favorites.  It’s strange that although I strove in real life to be friendly, kind, and happy, and was very much a people-pleaser, I was drawn to some relatively dark stories where people’s bad behaviors were often dealt with through some of the harshest punishments meted out.

At the same time I was deeply entrenched in the worlds of fairy godmothers and evil goblins and magic and spells, I also stumbled upon one of the first non-fiction books I ever remember reading.  Somehow I stumbled upon Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, and it was transformative.  I read about a young girl who was trapped in her silent and dark world, frustrated and angry about not being able to communicate with anyone.  Her world collided with Annie Sullivan, seemingly the only person who, with persistence and determination, could manage to slowly chip away at the wall Keller found herself behind.  Deaf and blind during that time in history, Keller could easily have been pushed aside, abandoned, or worse, and yet fortune or destiny or chance matched her with the woman who would teach her the way to communicate the fierce intellect and fiery spirit that had been bound up inside her.  It was another book I read and re-read, and it made me realize two very important things.  The first was that we never really know what is going on in someone else’s mind unless they are willing or able to share it.  The second was that people’s lives, their everyday existence, could be a story.  Our lives are stories.  Every one of us has one to share.  I went on to read other autobiographies and biographies, notable among them was the story of Joan of Arc.  Her faith, confidence, and selflessness were undeniably inspirational and awe-inspiring.  And at such a young age!  I guess even in my pre-teen days, I was drawn to stories of strong powerful women who made their mark.

At this point in my young reading life, my fiction and non-fiction fares continued on parallel lines.  Fiction found me moving from fairy tales to stories of witches and witchcraft, while my interest in non-fiction progressed from learning about strong people in history to learning about history itself.  I became engrossed in World War II, and more specifically, the Holocaust.  If my mother had paid the least bit of attention to what I was reading, she might have been concerned.  She didn’t, however.  I was a good kid, did very well in school, and caused no trouble for anyone.  It never even occurred to her to pay attention to what I was reading; she was just happy I could occupy myself for long stretches of time.  Not that I was reading either of those genres as how-to manuals or anything.  The stories about witches and witchcraft tended toward the lighthearted and fanciful, something like “Bewitched”, but there was definitely a dark and sinister tone to some of the books I read.  I didn’t get too entrenched, though, because while I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not I believed in that kind of supernatural power, I was smart enough to know I didn’t want to take any chances of accidentally signaling to some otherworldly figure that I might be interested in joining their ranks or somehow raising their ire.  (To this day, this is my rationale for not dabbling in such seemingly childish yet somehow sinister games like playing with a Ouija board.)  I imagine my interest in reading so much in this genre during this time, if I had to step back and look at it objectively, is that there was a lot of tension and instability in my household during that time, over which I had no control.  Perhaps reading about witches who had the power to manipulate and change circumstances for themselves or others gave me a little solace and a vicarious sense of power.  The Holocaust books I read during that time were almost entirely first-hand accounts of survivors of the concentration camps–an extension of my autobiography phase–and served as a counterpoint to the books about witchcraft.  Books about witchcraft were about wielding power over others, whereas survival memoirs were about the physical, emotional, and spiritual damage done to human beings when those in power give in to their unfettered desire for control and lose sight of humanity.  The atrocities I read about in the books about the Holocaust were far more horrific than anything I read about in the fictional stories of revenge-driven witches.  Humans have great potential for rising above adverse circumstances and persevering through trauma, but so do we have a terrible potential to give in to our basest desires and put self above all others.  It is up to us to decide which story we want written about us in the end.

From a young age, books have been a constant companion for me.  They were a way for me to not just try on identities and learn about parts of myself that were fledgling characteristics at the time, but also to try on ideas that were unfamiliar to me. They allowed me to grow an understanding of the world around me and begin to understand the nature of human beings, both good and evil, from a safe space within the confines of my home and my library. I retreated into the world in between pages so that I could step out into the world I inhabited with a better understanding of how I fit into it. 

Found Poetry, Book Title Edition

January 24, 2020

One moment...incendiary.
Catalyst.
Everything, everything-
things not seen, big little lies.
After the game,
emotionally weird.
Vanishing acts...

1984

January 18, 2018

I'm getting ready to read 1984 with my students.  I love 1984, and as a matter of fact I love dystopian fiction in general.  It's my very favorite genre.  However, in today's world, where these dystopian novels seemed to have moved out of the realm of the theoretical and into the realm of "Oh my gosh, this is literally happening!", I'm a little worried about how my students are going to react.  Of course, this is exactly why we read these kinds of books, but it doesn't mean it's not going to be uncomfortable.  It will certainly cause discussion and debate.  And although I hope kids will be able to see the truly cautionary nature of the book, what I hope even more is that as we share differing perspectives and values that will undoubtedly be borne out of reading this book together, my students will learn how to share those differing values civilly and maturely, unlike quite a lot of the 'discourse' I see online right now.  It's a valuable skill I think a great many people should attempt to strengthen.

Out of My Mind

January 14, 2018

A couple of years ago at the CATE conference I attended, I had the pleasure of hearing author Sharon Draper speak and read from her book, Out of My Mind.  She was incredibly engaging, and not surprisingly, a wonderful storyteller.  I actually got to meet her and she autographed a copy of her novel for me.

 It's a Young Adult novel, which I try to read quite a bit of in order to make good recommendations to my students.  This novel is about a fifth grade girl with an incredible mind who suffers from cerebral palsy.  Her condition, in addition to severely affecting her mobility, disrupts her ability to speak.  Doctors and teachers alike treat her as if she is incapable of much mental processing at all, although her mother, her beloved neighbor, and a couple of her teachers see a spark that shows she is able to process a good deal more than she can communicate.  When she finally gets a computer that allows her to "speak", she and those around her learn about her photographic memory and her incredible intelligence.

The writing style is engaging and keeps the reader invested.  Even though I was sure a couple of times I knew where the plot was going, there were a couple of plot turns that I didn't see coming, and I appreciated that.  Draper doesn't turn this book into a "And everyone who had ever treated her badly repented and became wonderful human beings" or even a "Melody was perfect and amazing and when she got her computer, she was even more perfect and amazing" kind of book.  Melody, the protagonist, has a disability but she isn't idealized.  She's allowed to be a typical 5th grader, with some ugly stubborness and moodiness, as well as empathy and reflectiveness.  She's also surrounded by people who are flawed and human--who sometimes make big mistakes.  They are 'real' humans dealing with the kind of real-life emotions that the rest of us go through.  It's not always an easy road, but we appreciate that we are on it with folks who respond like people we might know.

Reading Plan

January 12, 2018

One of my resolutions for this year is to do a little more reading for pleasure, now that I have finished my Master's degree.  I love to read, but it's had to take a bit of a back seat in the past two and a half years as I was working on all the reading I had to do for the program.  Weirdly, the first book I finished for the year was a business book we were given to read at work on dysfunctional work teams and how to create healthier environments.  Not the kind of book I would pick up on my own, but it wasn't bad, actually.  I tend to rotate among classics, young adult fiction (so that I can make recommendations to my students) contemporary fiction, and non-fiction.  Usually I read more than one book at a time, since my reading choice is dictated by my mood.  I'm not the fastest reader, so I'm not one who can pick up a book and polish it off in an afternoon, so my moods fluctuate as I'm progressing through a novel over the course of a couple of weeks.  Today my books of choice are Written on the Body by Winterson (a classic recommended by a friend), Out of My Mind by Draper (a YA novel by an author I actually had the privilege of hearing read from this book and meeting at a signing), and The Funny Thing Is by Ellen Degeneres (a woman I have great respect for because of her positive energy and outlook). 

Whew!

September 15, 2015

Four assignments due for my classes today.  All done and submitted on time.  Whew!

One Kid at a Time

September 3, 2015

Two interactions over the past couple of days that remind me why we're in the business of teaching:

1.  I introduced my College/Career Exploration Project in my senior classes.  They have to choose three institutions they might be interested in attending, and then look at aspects which might be decision-making factors for them: whether or not their intended major/focus is offered, location, cost, etc.  I tell them they can look at JCs, private colleges, UCs, military branches, CSUs, technical/trade schools, etc.  I had a kid come up to me after class to say he had no idea what the difference what among all of those things.  He didn't know what a JC was, had no idea what UC stands for.  He was thinking he'd just keep his same job that he has now for as long as he can.  His boss makes a lot of money owning his own business,  and he drives really nice cars.  I told him he's exactly the kid the project is designed for--to find out all the options he has.  I don't care if he chooses not to go to college, but I don't want him to not go just because he has no idea what his other options are.  He's going to research his current job to see what kind of salary and benefits he could earn as a full-time employee, and what growth opportunities there are, as well as other factors that might make it beneficial to stay in that job, such as flexible scheduling or vacation time.  He's also going to look at a junior college (which I explained to him), as well as a four year college with an emphasis in Business.  Whatever decision he ultimately makes, it will be with a little more understanding of all of his choices.

2.  I have an independent reading requirement in my classes.  I tell students that if they consider themselves non-readers, they just haven't met the right book that speaks to them yet.  So one of my students approached me and said he had never ever been interested in reading and wanted to know what I could suggest for him.  I asked him what his interests and past times were:  sports, biographies, history, documentaries.  So clearly we have a non-fiction kind of kid on our hands.  I went to my classroom library and pulled out 8 or 9 books that I thought might fit the bill and put them on his desk to peruse.  I was hoping one of them might pique his interest, but if not I'd dig around a little at home for more.  After about fifteen minutes we approached me again with five of the books in his hands.  He asked, "How do I check these out?  I didn't like the other ones, but all of these seem really interesting to me."  Typically, students only check out one at a time, but I was so excited that my 'non-reader' had found a few he wanted to at least try out that I didn't want to discourage him and showed him the process for checking out books from my library.  At the end of class, he approached me again and said, "I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate taking the time to talk to me and help me find a book.  No teacher has ever done that for me before.  I can tell you are really there for your students, and I am really excited about being in this class with you for senior year."

I mean forget the paycheck (metaphorically, people--let's not get carried away)--THIS is real teacher's pay.

Checking Out the Classroom Library

August 27, 2015

A few comments overheard in class today during our Book Pass, where I introduce students to some of the books in our classroom library:

--"What are the odds? She happened to put the one book I've been wanting to read on MY desk!" (Sheer happy coincidence--I placed a random book on every desk.)

--"Oh my gosh...she has the book I wanted to finish. I lost mine before I finished it!"

--"Wait..this book on film-making counts for our independent reading? I'd actually READ that book!"

Not to mention at least 25 kids checked out books from me they found interesting after the Book Pass. Woo hoo--I'd say that was a positive experience!

It's Never Too Late

July 31, 2015

About 18 years ago, I reached a point in my academic career where I was ready to be not just a teacher, but a student again.  I learned about a Master's Program in English Literature that was geared toward teachers.  It was a two-year summer intensive program at UC Irvine, and something about the timing just seemed right.

SEEMED right, yes.  And mostly, it was.  I loved being in the classroom again.  My sister lived near Irvine, so I traveled down south to stay with her Monday-Thursday, and I came home again Thursday night through Sunday.  I didn't have to pay any additional for housing, and I had study time in the evenings while I was there, so that part was great.  The difficult thing was I was a mom to two young children (4 and 18 mo.), so every week during those summers I was without them part of every week. Their dad, who is also a teacher, took full-time daddy duty on my school days, and when I was home I was on full-time.  It was exhausting, and I was guilt-ridden often (especially when I was told by a close family member how selfish I was for abandoning my children--to their dad!--and that they would suffer life-long rejection issues because of it).  But, I also wanted to show myself and some day my children that I was capable of this kind of success through perseverance and hard work.  I wanted to be a good role model for them.

At some point after I'd enrolled in the program, but before classes started, I discovered that I was pregnant with my third child.  I was elated, but didn't really process the additional logistical hurdles this would create.  The first summer went as planned, but during the following school year, she was born, which meant she traveled down with me to Irvine during my 4 day school week during the second summer.  I enlisted one my sister's good friends, who was a stay at home mom, to watch her while I was in classes, and I would drive over in between my classes to nurse her.  In the evenings, of course, she was at my sister's with me. I studied with her in my lap or by my side, and then on Thursday evenings we'd make the four hour drive back home together.  It was even more of a juggling act, but we managed.  I completed all of my coursework and even managed to get my premise and quite a bit of my rough thesis worked out before the session was over, and then I packed up and headed back home to my husband and oldest children for good.

I had a year to process and finish my thesis.  I didn't do it.  There are lots of excuses why I didn't do it--at home, with three children five and under, and a husband, and a full time teaching job, and all of my household responsibilities, well, it just seemed I couldn't justify locking myself away to work on a paper when all of these other needs were just on the other side of the door.  Four hours away when I was taking classes, I could compartmentalize.  At home? I found it nearly impossible.  And I didn't WANT to be away from my babies.  I found it easy to drop my thesis to the bottom of my priority list, which, by the way, was a very long list.  I'm sure lots of folks will say I shouldn't have taken on the task to begin with; just as many will say if I had already sacrificed all of my time with my family anyway, it was a waste not to stick to it and finish it out.  Both of those things are probably true.  But so is it true that pursuing my education was a worthwhile and vital thing.  These things contradict each other and are simultaneously true.

The bottom line is, I didn't finish then.  And it has haunted me every since.  I don't see it as a waste of time, because I grew from the classes I took.  I don't even see it as a waste of money, since I do earn more because of the additional classes I took.  I do, however, see it as a failure on my part--a shortcoming I haven't rectified. I've always been embarrassed that I set out to get my Master's Degree, and I didn't cross the finish line.  Once the finish line got so far away from me, I didn't even know how to jump back into the race.

Now, 18 years later, a new opportunity has made itself available. Fresno State has a Master's in Education with an Emphasis in Reading (with a Reading Specialist Credential) that they are building a new cohort for with teachers in our district and a neighboring one.  Reading is a passion of mine; the teaching of critical reading to high school students is one of the most satisfying parts of my job.  I had no idea there was such a program, let alone one offered right here in my own backyard.  To have become aware of it now that my children are (mostly) grown and independent feels like a second chance for redemption.  I've been saying for years that I would eventually go back and finish my Master's Degree, but honestly I think I didn't really believe it.   It's been so buried on my life's 'To Do' list that I didn't know if I would ever really get to it.  And yet, here it is.  I have applied, and have been accepted.  It's never too late--and I can't wait to get started.

Reading Identity

August 26, 2014

I'm often amazed at how many of my students see themselves as 'non-readers'.  Then we get to talking and sharing all of the different kinds of reading we all do in our everyday lives--traditional and non-traditional--and they share ALL KINDS of things they read.  Novels, sure, but also cookbooks and gaming magazines and baseball stats and computer code and music notes and movies and even body language, just to name a few.  My job is to teach my students to think through processing the written word, but often they haven't seen that their skill sets in other kinds of reading--sometimes quite deep and intuitive and very thoughtful--can translate into application to the written word.  It's pretty cool when students feel validated in their own areas of expertise and can begin to see the transfer potential.  It's my goal to help all of my kids see themselves as readers, because ultimately what I mean when I say that is that I want them to recognize themselves as thinkers.  This week, we begin that journey together.

This Is Where I Leave You

August 20, 2014

Our book club met tonight to discuss our first book, This is Where I Leave You.  This was the first book our group has chosen--our first discussion.  Most of us are Buchanan teachers: Christine, Marci, Jen, Kristin, Tina, Allison, and me.  Let me tell you, these are some really fun, intelligent, and fascinating women!  For the record, the general consensus was that we didn't much like the book, because none of the characters, especially the protagonist, was particularly likable or sympathetic.  Our dislike, however, didn't remotely hinder our conversation, and like all good book discussions, it started out with the book and then expanded to real life connections and general philosophizing. Our book talk was funny, non-stop, and insightful. (The book was about a dysfunctional family, which most of us can relate to, although this particular family had its own special blend of every possible dysfunction concentrated in one fairly small family.)  One of the deciding factors in choosing this book was that it's been made into a movie that's coming out next month, so we had already planned to follow up with a movie night.  Even though we didn't love the book, we watched the movie trailer, which has a fantastic and funny cast, and we think this may be one of the rare cases of the movie being better than the book. We've already chosen our next book and the next meeting date, and I'm already looking forward to getting together with these fantastic ladies again!  I'm really hoping that we don't let the crazy busy-ness of the school year push off our get-togethers--I feel like this is going to be a great way to recharge our batteries if we decide to make it a priority for ourselves.

In Defense of Fiction

March 13, 2014

                I just finished reading a novel called Little Bee, by Chris Cleave.  I came upon this book accidentally, as is often the way I come across a particular book.  I’m a haunter of thrift stores, bargain bins, and garage sales for new and interesting titles to line my bookshelves with, both the ones in my home and the ones in my classroom.  I’m a big believer in the power of the written word to transport and transform, to ignite and incite, and to engross and entertain.  I believe in surrounding myself and my children with words, because I believe it encourages them to know that their voices, too, are powerful.  Entertaining.  Valuable.

                So I came across this book on one of my treasure hunts.  I looked first at the binding, then at the cover, and then at the synopsis on the back.  We tell kids not to judge a book by its cover, but my students—especially my reluctant readers—don’t often know where else to begin.  And if we’re honest, we adults who attempt to guide students through the world of knowledge outside their own worlds, we’ll admit that it’s often where we begin, too.  Why on earth else would publishers and artists expend so much time, energy, and money on what the outside of the book looks like?  If we want people to walk into our house and cozy up on the figurative couch with our ideas, we’re going to want our front porch to be inviting, right?  Of this particular book, Little Bee, I thought the graphics and the title were interesting.  The back cover summary, which intimated a dark secret that bound two women inextricably, was intriguing.  I dropped the book into my cart with several companions, made my purchase, and then set out to divide my new acquisitions between my classroom and home libraries.  Little Bee was one I couldn’t immediately place—not until I’d read it and determined what, in fact, was the secret, and whether or not my classroom was the right home for it.

                I dove in, not knowing what to expect.  Little Bee turned out to be the name of our protagonist, one of two alternating narrators in the work.  The world of Little Bee, a sixteen-year-old illegal immigrant fleeing the horrors of her native Nigeria, is shocking, unsettling.  How she comes to find herself connected to Sarah and her son Charlie is a series of choices, each one setting a subsequent one in motion, until their worlds collide and become simultaneously uncomfortably and comfortably intertwined.  The secret that binds them? I will reveal no more than the back cover of that novel did.  Suffice it to say the secret continues to be revealed and unraveled throughout the course of the novel.  Each piece of the secret that comes to light lays bare another part of the story—and it’s worth digging in deeper to find the whole story.

                It’s not a nice story.  In fact, it takes the reader to some very dark places.  I wanted to look away; I wanted to put down the book and be done.  But it was compelling, you see, shining a light on a place and an injustice most of us will, thankfully, never see in the kind of first-hand nightmare-you-can’t-escape kind of way.  We can put the book down—take a break from it for a while, live our reality, flawed though it may be—and remember that we are not in that place.  But the point is, there are people for whom this is a reality, an existence from which they can’t escape.  And in the end, I had to go back; I had to know what happened to Little Bee and to Sarah.

                In my neighborhood, there are no guerrilla troops raiding villages; there is not a violent power struggle between powerful factions that leaves torn and broken human collateral damage in its wake.  This world I stepped into as a brief visitor is, however, real.  The story is inspired by theft and greed and corruption over real crude oil in a very real Nigeria.  The true events are well-documented and thoroughly researched.  If I’d come across a news article online about the human injustice—the unadulterated disregard for human life at the expense of a land-grab that might yield financial gain—I would almost certainly flick the page or scroll past the story.  I would exercise the kind of purposeful ignorance that many who are comfortable in life often exercise.  If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

                The book, though—it made it real.  Funny thing, that; a fictionalized account is what made the thing real to me.  Why?  Because it humanized the circumstances for me.  It made it personal. I cared about Little Bee’s experience; I cared about her life. I was invested and I was moved.  Her story continued to stay with me when I was not with her, and her story continues to affect me even though I have turned the final page. This is not to say that a non-fiction account couldn’t have done the same thing; this is to say that it didn’t.

                This perhaps sounds like a book review, or possibly the initial workings-out of an analysis.  That is not my intent.  What continued to reverberate in my mind for quite a while after reading the book in addition to the fact that I had been educated about a facet of the modern world I didn’t even know existed was something entirely outside of the story itself.  As teachers of English, we have seen a seismic shift in the past several years regarding the importance of reading.  What do kids need to read in order to be productive citizens?  What do students need in order to adequately and appropriately enter the work force?  Overwhelmingly, the answer from the world of business and even the world of academia has been a sharp aversion to the luxury of reading fiction ‘for fun’ and a turn toward non-fiction.  Functional, informative, necessary.  That’s what our kids need.  They need to be critical thinkers and they need to be problem-solvers.  Nowhere in their world, unless their aspiration is to become a stuffy and quaint 19^th Century Literature professor, will they be asked to read novels to make a living.  Why on earth hold on to such antiquated ideas about English curriculum?  Why bother?  The novel is dead; no one needs to read fiction anymore.  It isn’t relevant.  It isn’t real. 

                Except that it is relevant; it is real.  Unrest in Nigeria is real, and citizens are dying.  Government tyranny and oppression, like Orwell’s 1984 or Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, exist.  Today.  Right now.  Compelling and disturbing choices have resounding and long-lasting effects on the human psyche, such as those illustrated in The Kite Runner or The Poisonwood Bible.  Real?  These authors aren’t writing about characters; they are writing about life.  Real life.  Issues in our world.  Problems that need solved.  Questions that need to be faced.  Questions that need to be answered.  Oh, they’re real, alright.  And although nonfiction writers write about some of these same issues and ask us to contemplate the hard questions, fiction writers dress up those issues in raiment familiar and close to us, so that we may examine them firsthand, walking hand in hand with the characters on their journey.  They allow us to see the human-ness behind the story and see the way in which a person can inhabit the experience in a personal way.  The fiction, in fact, makes it real.  We are drawn in by the cover or by the artwork on the front, and we are dropped headlong into a reality we might never have known we didn’t know.

Functional, informative, necessary.  That’s what reading should be, according to the pundits of the day.  And make no mistake; I am not advocating abstaining from reading nonfiction.  There is a wealth of fascinating, engaging, and informative nonfiction to take in.  But to sweep under the rug the vast landscape of literary fiction as a superfluous luxury is not only erroneous, but dangerous.  Fiction draws us in because we are human, because we want to relate.  And because it draws us in, it is able to delve into what connects us as human beings because we become invested in the lives of those we spend time with—in real life and in between the pages of a book.  Good fiction is functional; it begs us to think and draw parallels and understand what it means to be human.  Good fiction is informative; it shows us vast landscapes, both literal and figurative, that expand our horizons.  Good fiction is necessary; it connects us to each other across time and across place.  It reminds us that there is more that should bind us as humans than that should divide us.

 Functional, informative, necessary.  I suppose all depends really, on how you choose to define those terms.  If you boil them down to the lowest form, the most basic of terms, one might say you only need the barest of essentials.  On the one hand, perhaps one might define that as eliminating ‘superfluous fiction’.  Read only what you need to do in order to function appropriately within the construct of the job you’ve chosen to pursue.  Perhaps you only need to read science documents for your job, or perhaps read government policy.  I would agree that those are necessary skills.  On the other hand, might one not define the most necessary element of our future as the ability to read a common thread of humanity among us?  The ability to put a human face to the issues that need our problem-solvers and our critical thinkers?  This is not a luxury or a past-time for the idle; this is what we need as a society.  We need never to forget our connectedness, and fiction allows us to remember in a real and personal way.  It may, as it turns out, be exactly what we need.