Sibling Assignment # 115 : Best Book That Changed My Thinking

I gave the sibling assignment this  week. Tell about the best book you've read recently that helped change your thinking about something. I will link my siblings' posts when they are completed.


I do read a lot of books. I read books with my students, I read professional books, writing books, and books for pleasure. I read cookbooks, the Bible, poetry books, and humor books. I love the feel of books, the words in books, and the sight of books sitting on my shelf.

I love everything Anna Quindlen writes . I love her essay collections, her novels, her advice books, but the book that recently changed my thinking was her thin volume  How Reading Changed My Life. I had read this book once before a few years ago, but during my studies this year with my National Board Certification program I reread it.  I wanted to dig deeper into knowing my students, their likes and dislikes. I am also exploring their habits as readers.

My middle school students love to read. They get to start the period each day reading, but many days ask for more time. Do you realize how hard it is to say, " I'm sorry- I need to ask you to close a book that has taken you to another time, another place because we really need to look at literary elements to prepare for our state test?"  I  build in literature that I feel is important for students to be exposed to, but during that time at the first of the period I think choice reading is important. Students'  lives are busy. They often don't have time to sit for hours in the evening and read the latest Twilight book or the most recent Wimpy Kid book. I build in that time. I did have to draw the line recently when I realized that the thick hardbound book one student was studying intently was a very fancy catalog from Cabela's. " Sorry... not enough text!," I reminded him.

By rereading Quindlen's book I was reminded of why my students like to read. She has many big ideas,  but one that stayed with me is this.  Quindlen states, " A book provides what it always has: a haven." She goes on to explain difficulties during the early years as a mother and what saved her sanity was books.  She went on to say " Reading continues to provide an escape from a crowded house into an imaginary room of one's own." This changed my thinking about my students. I think when life gets a bit crazy, when the house might be crowded, when somebody picks on them before class that reading does provide that haven. It made me realize how important that time may be in class. 

" Perhaps we are the world's great nomads, if only in our minds," Quindlen goes on to remind us. My students live in a remote area. Some of them have never traveled in a plane, others have not yet seen an ocean, and none of them have traveled to a foreign country except Canada.  I have realized by rereading this book that books do take all of us to places we have never been. Fantasy books grab the attention of many of my students as they create whole new worlds in their minds.  She continues by reminding us that, " Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

I want to encourage my students to keep reading. I want books to be a haven, a view into another world, or  into another person's head. I want books to feel like home. I am glad I reread Anna Quindlen's book.

The book ends with a series of great book lists. The last page has the following list. There are still some on this list I am going to add to my growing list of books to read.

10  Books I Just Love to Read, and Always Will
by Anna Quindlen
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Blue Swallows by Howard Nemerov
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

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Best Images at Sunrise

Between the ice and snow yesterday morning the sun made a spectacular entrance above the mountain. JEJ caught these photos after I left home. The sky was brilliant as I drove to school also, but I had to concentrate more on driving. Enjoy his series of images.

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”- John Muir

The Best Family In the World

Silver Valley Girl, Mom, and Raymond Pert on his birthday in Kellogg a couple of weeks ago.

I have the best family a girl could ever want. The structure of this family has changed much throughout my adult years. Three spouses are not part of the family anymore. Three spouses have now become a part of the family. Babies and grown children have joined the group as grandchildren, nieces, step-children, and step great-grandchildren. Dogs and cats have left the family and new ones have been introduced.  We have said sad farewells to grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and Dad. I think the passing of my dad, as sad as it was, has brought our family closer together. We came together and have stayed together.

We supported Mom the best we could through her breast cancer, back injury, and hip replacement. We went wig shopping, practiced using a walker for her, and tried to find anything that would taste good during chemo.  We did what we could from afar when Raymond Pert suffered months of illness last year. At two writing retreats I observed him gently pull amazing writing from participants with ease and humor.   Each time Silver Valley Girl by herself or with family members performs, directs, writes the script, does concessions, sells tickets, does PR, and/or manages lights at the Sixth Street Theater in Wallace, Idaho the family is there to laugh when we are supposed to laugh, boo and hiss when in the audience for the melodrama, or walk up on the stage as brother RP did a few summers ago as part of Kelly's Alley.

Even though our homes stretch from Kettle Falls to Kellogg to Eugene we have a common bond that brings us together. Our sibling assignments on our blogs and sibling outings around the inland empire are two of those bonding activities.  Holidays (like RP's birthday above) are another.  Mom's deck for a BBQ in the summer often brings us all together. It may also be our country church at Garden Valley, a movie at the Valley Mall, or a road trip to the Oregon Coast.

We have all had challenges, heartbreaks, ups, downs, good jobs, bad jobs, works published, pictures in the press, victories, defeats, the best of times and the worst of times, but we have hung together.I do have the best family in the world. Thank you SVG, RP, and Mom.

The Best Flower in Winter: Amaryllis

As thick fog surrounded the view outside the window and slush and worn out snow filled my boots, it was nice to be greeted at the end of the day by an amaryllis bloom. After bringing one home from a shopping trip in the fall the routines for growing this holiday plant are followed step by step.  Soak the peat moss, stick the huge bulb in the pot, find a good growing spot, remember to water, then begin the waiting game. I never know if I will have blooms on New Year's Day, Mom's birthday, or Valentine's Day. The boxes have long been burned in the woodstove, so the color and texture is always a surprise. This is the earliest bloom I remember.

A second bloom has opened this evening as I sat writing this. There are two more buds on this plant about ready to open. Another amaryllis sitting next to this beauty shows signs of a deep red color. There is more to look forward to on this gray, slushy Tuesday at the beginning of January. I will have my camera ready.

Best Poem About Applesauce

 I don't know if I have ever read any other poem about applesauce, but thanks to the carefully chosen words and vivid images Ted Kooser created, this is the best for me.


Applesauce

I liked how the starry blue lid
of that sauce pan lifted and puffed,
then settled back on a thin
hotpad of steam, and the way
her kitchen filled with the warm
wet breath of apples, as if all
the apples were talking at once,
as if they'd come cold and sour
from chores in the orchard,
and were trying to shoulder in
close to the fire. She was too busy
to put in her two cent's worth
talking to apples. Squeezing
her dentures with wrinkly lips,
she had to jingle and stack
the bright brass coins of the lids
and thoughtfully count out
the red rubber rings, then hold
each jar, to see if it was clean,
to a window that looked out
through her back yard into Iowa.
And with every third or fourth jar
she wiped steam from her glasses,
using the hem of her apron,
printed with tiny red sailboats
that dipped along with leaf-green
banners snapping, under puffs
of pale applesauce clouds
scented with cinnamon and cloves,
the only boats under sail
for at least two thousand miles
 

~ Ted Kooser

The Best Verse in the Bible

French Rock boat launch, Lake Roosevelt

I don't think it is possible to choose the best verse in the Bible, but today our pastor opened the sermon with a scripture that I have highlighted in my Bible and revisit often. The best verse in the Bible is all about timing. It is how the words reach a person at that moment. Today these words spoke to my heart and for today it is the best verse in the Bible.

" Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. " - Philippians 4:6-9

I have spent many days of my life dealing with anxiety. It continues to get better. Rereading this always helps.