Reading Update

Book #51 of the year was When the World Fell Silent, by Donna Jones Alward. It's a historical novel about the Halifax Explosion of 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This was a book club read, and while it wasn't one of our very favorites, we did enjoy it.

 

Book #52 was The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness, by Kenn Kaufman. I knew Kaufman was a great writer, after reading his classic Kingbird Highway. (I wrote some "found haiku" from that book here.) When I heard about this one on a podcast, I had to read it too. It's about Audubon, the discovery of new-to-us species, and art illustration. I read it on my Kindle, which doesn't have color, so I wasn't fully able to appreciate Kaufman's art, but another aspect of the book is his project to do bird paintings in the style of Audubon. At some point I hope to see a hard copy and get a closer look at his art. I recommend this, and it's on deep discount for Kindle right now.

 

Book #53 was Safe All Along: Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God's Unshakable Peace, by Katie Davis Majors. I wanted to read this because I had just read and enjoyed the author's first book, Kisses from Katie. This one is about dealing with stress and anxiety, particularly when it involves worrying about people we love. I thought it was well done.

 

Book #54 was Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger. This is a murder mystery set in Minnesota in 1961. It was very well-written. One of the reviews on Amazon compared it with To Kill a Mockingbird, and I think that is a good comparison.

 

Book #55 was Expiration Dates, by Rebecca Serle. This has a very rom-com premise, but it soon reveals itself to be a little deeper than that.

 

Book #56 was Babel: An Arcane History, by R. F. Kuang. This book is fantasy/alternative history. It's set in a somewhat mystical version of Oxford in the 19th century, and focuses on foreigners who have been brought in for their language abilities to do work that keeps the empire afloat. I found it very readable and entertaining. I had read some reviews that called it preachy and didactic, and that wasn't my experience of it at all.

 

Book #57 was Ina Garten's memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. I've never watched her show, and I didn't really love this book, but it was interesting to follow her journey.

 

Book #58 was Warlight, by Michael Ondaadjte. I learned about this book from a comment left by a reader of my blog. I had posted an A.E. Housman poem (here) and the commenter pointed out that Ondaadjte quotes the poem in this book. I found the book a little hard to follow, but it could have been because I was reading it during travel and not giving it the attention it deserved. I almost didn't finish it, but really wanted to know how it would end; ultimately I wasn't all that satisfied.

 

Book #59 was All that Life Can Afford, by Emily Everett. I found it stressful reading because the main character is keeping secrets and it's so obvious this will be her downfall. It is, but there's a happy ending and all is well. 

 

Book #60 was The Wedding People, by Alison Espach. I didn't like the premise (content warning: suicide), and I didn't find the story believable, but it was well-written and there was a lot going on, so I kept reading. 

 

Book #61 was the third book by Raynor Winn, Landlines: The Remarkable Story of a Thousand-Mile Journey Across Britain. While I was reading it, the controversy about Winn broke (you can Google it), leading me to wonder how much it mattered. I think it was worth reading this series even if some of the facts were presented a bit differently from the way they actually happened. My main takeaway from the three books is that life is hard, particularly for homeless people, and that walking and being outdoors are always good things. I'm glad I read them, and I hope Winn's fourth book ends up getting published after all. 

SJT July: Still Waters

Psalm 23: 1-3

The Lord is my Shepherd; I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters;

He refreshes my soul.

 

I took the picture above a few days ago as we walked with some friends. It's good to have a break from school this summer and to spend some time doing different things besides work. But sometimes it's possible to walk beside quiet waters and still have your mind full of worries. I have to confess that I am often that fretful sheep. I need to turn away from the news and from all my concerns and allow my soul to be refreshed. Here's a poem I wrote in April during our school's poetry challenge. The prompt for this one was "Still."

 

 

 

Still


To many thousand thoughts that fill
My anxious mind, I say,
Be still

To worries swirling through what will
And will not happen now,
Be still

I cannot rest my heart until
Breath slows, relaxes: Peace,
Be still.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Karen is hosting Spiritual Journey Thursday this week; check out her blog to see what others are saying about this topic.

 

 

Poetry Friday: Fireflies (Poetry Friday Roundup is Here This Week!)

Hello friends! I am happy to be hosting Poetry Friday this week. I am in the United States at the moment, on summer break from my usual home in Kampala, Uganda, so our usual time zone issues do not apply. I'm on Eastern Standard Time, and in the land of fast internet, and I'm not teaching, so your head may spin with the speed at which I will round up your contributions (the old-fashioned way)! Leave your link in the comments. Comment moderation is enabled so you won't see your comment immediately.

 

It looks as though I have participated in Poetry Friday only twelve times this school year. I haven't written many poems this year, either, or even read all that many. My focus these days is slightly different because I'm not teaching English any more, but I still love the opportunity to be immersed in poetry. The news may be all bad, all the time, but there are still beautiful words, like fireflies in a jar, giving out some light. For today's roundup, I decided to focus on fireflies, a perfect metaphor for ephemeral beauty. Here are some poems about them.

 

Fireflies

by Marilyn Kallet

 

In the dry summer field at nightfall,

fireflies rise like sparks.

Imagine the presence of ghosts 

flickering, the ghosts of  young friends, 

your father nearest in the distance.

This time they carry no sorrow,

no remorse, their presence is so light.

Childhood comes to you,

memories of your street in lamplight,

holding those last moments before bed,

capturing lightning-bugs,

with a blossom of the hand

letting them go. Lightness returns,

an airy motion over the ground

you remember from Ring Around the Rosie.

If you stay, the fireflies become fireflies

again, not part of your stories,

as unaware of you as sleep, being

beautiful and quiet all around you.  

Fireflies in the Garden

by Robert Frost

 

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies;

And here on earth come emulating flies, 

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

 

 

What do you have to share this week?

 

Jane was inspired by a ferry boat to write some haiku. (She also has a book coming out!)

 

Robyn is celebrating Pride Month with rainbows and a literary auction. 

 

Rose is honoring the memory of Katey Howes with a review of her new book and a short poem inspired by it.

 

Michelle is focusing on defending democracy and on nature. She shares a poem and a photo with us.

 

Jama is sharing a Richard Jones poem just right for Father's Day, plus some recipes for madeleines.

 

Mary Lee has written a "Chant of a June Garden," full of plant goodness.

 

Laura has a poem this week about a snail, from Rings of Heartwood, a new book for kids by Molly Beth Griffith.

 

Marcie has a post full of treasures, including her list of the "Art of Summering." 

 

Linda's hosting a Clunker Exchange today. Here are the instructions: 1) Choose a line from the list, which you can change however you want, and "leave a clunker line of your own as exchange in the comments."

 

Matt has an important poem that he wrote about his college best friend. 

 

Carol has good words about the reality that springtime can be a time of sadness. 

 

Tabatha, like so many of us, is thinking of immigration and democracy.

 

Irene has the next installment of ArtSpeak: PICASSO, a poem called "Self-Portrait as Don Quixote." 

 

Patricia shares an interview with her sister, poet Kathy Pon, about Pon's new chapbook.

 

Sarah Grace is thinking about fires both literal and figurative, and she also has a way to download a pdf copy of her chapbook of protest poetry, or even get hard copies. 

 

Jone has a link to a poem written by a friend who recently passed away, and she's also discovered a new Irish poet. 

 

Carol just got back from Yosemite, and found some poems about it from 1917!

 

Margaret has a book coming out too, and hers is a biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet. She shares a praise poem about Paillet. 

 

Diane is in with some quiet time and a letter to a dream.

SJT June: Summering

Ramona is our host this month for Spiritual Journey Thursday. Her prompt for us is as follows:

 

"Since retirement, summer no longer has the delicious allure of a respite from the hectic days of teaching. My move to NC has put me in the thick of summer humidity and mosquitoes after 26 Seattle summers. (Can you tell that I'm finding it hard to embrace summer in my new state?) This theme is an invitation to each of you to help me find "summer love". Do you have particular spiritual rhythms for summering? Is there a book out there like Katherine May's Wintering for summer?"

 

 

I didn't post yesterday, on the actual Spiritual Journey Thursday, because it was our last day of school. It was a half day with kids, followed by a teacher lunch that went on well into the afternoon. Graduation is tomorrow, so our school year isn't fully over, but we're definitely almost there. 

 

Ramona asked us about spiritual rhythms for summering. Unlike her, I am still teaching, so summer is a blessed break. The rhythms slow down, and there's some much-needed rest. This summer will contain some travel, some professional development (I'm doing an online AP teaching course), some time with family and friends, and more reading than usual. (I just heard that Walter Brueggemann died yesterday. I've read his Collected Sermons, but I also have his book The Prophetic Imagination on my Kindle, and I haven't read it yet, so that's going on my list for the summer.) Notice I didn't even mention writing; I do so little of that these days. But I'm hosting Poetry Friday next week, so we'll see how that goes.

 

My focus lately has been trying to take things as they come, not worrying about the future but living in today. World events make that challenging, as they always do. But here's something from Walter Brueggemann:

 

"There is something hidden, inscrutable, playful, and unresolved about our human lives that warns us not to be too sure. Such a claim is odd and uncomfortable for us, because it robs us of deep certainty and ultimate control. We may say even more. That hidden inscrutable, playful dimension of our life is an arena in which the purposes of God may be at work among us in ways we do not even recognize. This hiddenness must be honored and taken seriously, because it is a way in which God does for us more than we can do for ourselves. The big word for this hidden power of God is providence. It means that God sees before (pro-video), that God knows well ahead of us and takes the lead in our lives. This is not the same as being 'fated,' or having our lives settled in the stars. It is rather a claim that God is a real power in our lives, and is not simply a shadow or mirror of our own good intentions. God takes initiatives for our lives which may run counter to our own best intentions. Faithful people pay attention to this hiddenness, and are willingly led by it." Walter Brueggemann, from The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann.

 

Check out what everyone else wrote on this topic here.

Reading Update

Book #41 of 2025 was Clytemnestra, by Costanza Casati. This retelling of Clytemnestra's story is violent and harsh. What was it like to grow up Spartan? How was her relationship with her sister Helen, who would become Helen of Troy? What about her first marriage? What about her monstrous second husband, Agamemnon? If you're very into this whole story like I am, it's a must read.

 

Book #42 was The Wild Silence, by Raynor Winn. This is the second in a three book series; I read the first one earlier this year and I'm looking forward to reading the third. 

Book #43 was Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty. This book was so much fun, so unpredictable, and ultimately so affecting -- the ending made me cry. It's about the future, and death, and how we live our lives. We're here one moment, and maybe gone the next.

 

Book #44 was The Star-Apple Kingdom, by Derek Walcott. This book of poetry by Caribbean poet Walcott will need several re-readings, but even though I didn't get all the references my first time through, it was so beautifully written that I enjoyed it anyway.

 

Book #45 was The Life-Cycle of the Common Octopus, by Emma Knight. This is a very readable novel about Canadians studying in Scotland, how our families influence us, and the dynamics of friendship. Trigger warning for inappropriate teacher-student affair.

Book #46 was Swan Song, by Elin Hilderbrand. This was my fourth book by this author, who writes about Nantucket and badly behaved rich people.

 

Book #47 was Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, by Katie J. Davis and Beth Clark. Katie moved to Uganda when she was still a teenager. This is the story of how that went. Some of our students at school have been reading it and talking about it.

 

Book #48 was Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins. I've been reading these Hunger Games books since the first one came out. I of course didn't expect this one to have a happy ending, since it's about Haymitch, and we all know from the other books how he turned out. But I wasn't expecting it to be quite as relentlessly bleak as it was. This came out in March and I had to wait for a library copy to be ready for me to download. I couldn't put it down, and zipped through it.

 

Book #49 was Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick. Speaking of bleak. This book came out in 2009, but the version I read had an afterword with updates going up to 2021. It's based on interviews with people who defected from North Korea, and it's very hard to read in places because their lives were just so grim. 

One of the highlights of this school year was getting to read Gary D. Schmidt's book Okay for Now with a group of seventh graders. I have read this book with many seventh grade classes, but it had been a while. I decided to post this one as this year's book #50, even though I've read it many times before, because it felt so good to discuss a novel with middle schoolers again.

Reading Update

Book #27 of the year was L'Énigme du Retour, by Dany Laferrière. I downloaded it a while ago because I was craving reading something Haitian, preferably something not about death and misery. This book, though it was published in 2009, was about death and misery, in its own way. After the death of his father, the protagonist, exiled in Canada, returns to Haiti and reflects on what he sees and experiences. Here's an English translation. 

Book #28 was Lady Tan's Circle of Women, by Lisa See. This story, set in 15th century China, is a fascinating look at the life of a wealthy woman who learns about medicine and caring for other women's health. 

Book #29 was Digging in the Dirt: Musings on Missions, Emotions, and Life in the Mud, by Jonathan Trotter. I enjoyed these essays on cross-cultural living and working.

 

Book #30 was Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom. I read this with my book group. It was the sequel to The Kitchen House (reviewed in this post), which we enjoyed. I think I liked this one even more, though it was equally painful, since it too was about slavery. This one was also about the Underground Railroad and people who lived in the Great Dismal Swamp. It's almost unbearably suspenseful and exciting. 

Book #31 was a reread; I actually read it a couple of times this school year because I taught it to my AP French students. It's Petit Pays, by Gaël Faye. (You can find an English version here.) This book is so good and so well-written. It's also an introduction to the story of the Rwandan genocide. For all of my students this year, it was their first French novel. We also watched the movie when we were finished reading it. Highly recommended!

 

Book #32 was Within Arm's Reach, by Ann Napolitano, a saga of an Irish-American family living in New Jersey.

 

Book #33 was A Long Way Home: A Memoir, by Saroo Brierley. It's the almost incredible story of an Indian boy who gets lost on a train journey with his older brother. When the brother disappears, Saroo, who is only 5, wanders off on his own and ends up on the street in Calcutta. What happens next, and then when he is an adult, makes for amazing reading.

 

Book #34 was The Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie Savage Carlson. Our librarian recommended this when I was looking for a story set in Paris. This middle grade novel won a Newbery Honor in 1959. I enjoyed it.

 

Book #35 was The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn. Brought to the end of themselves by a series of terrible blows, Ray and Moth decide to set off on a walk of 630 miles. This true story is both upsetting and inspiring, and it's also an affecting description of homelessness.

 

Book #36 was this year's Newbery winner,  The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly. I liked the setting, a few months ahead of Y2K, and the time travel aspect. 

Book #37, Conclave, by Robert Harris, was recommended online by someone after the recent death of the Pope. It's an interesting story in its own right, but it's also a good way to learn about how the process works as the conclave chooses a new Pope.

 

Book #38 was Burn, by Peter Heller. I've read several of Heller's books, and this one includes many of the same elements as the others. Outdoors (including birds), heart-thumping action, apocalyptic setting, and sad back-story. I thought this one was terrific.

 

Book #39 was The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, another book club choice. I read this when it first came out in the 90s, but I had forgotten many of the details. It's very well-written and a thought-provoking retelling of the story of Jacob and his family from the Bible. This version is extremely different! The protagonist is Dinah, Jacob's daughter.

 

Book #40 was Pay Attention, Carter Jones, by Gary D. Schmidt. I have read lots of Schmidt's books and shared them with students, but last week I listened to a podcast about Schmidt and noted that there are a few that I haven't read yet. This was one. If you like Schmidt's style as I do, you'll like this one.

 

SJT May: Blossoming

 

I have been very uneven in my participation in Spiritual Journey Thursday so far this year, but I felt I really needed to participate this month (even though I'm a day late). Carol, our host, just lost her husband, and yet is able to post about blossoming. So if she can, I can too.

 

Here in Central Uganda we don't have the same seasons as in the northern hemisphere, but this is rainy season, and the abundant rain contributes to the constant greenness of our area. And yes, blossoming of one kind or another all year round. Here are some recent blossom photos (all taken in April):

 

When I went looking for Bible verses about flowers, I found that most of them are about the temporary nature of these beautiful blossoms.  Like our lives on earth, flowers don't last forever, but while they are here, we can enjoy them. And as Luke 12:27 says, "Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." Even in our short-lived days, God takes care of us.

 

Although it isn't really spring here, it is definitely exam season, and that's keeping me extremely busy. But nevertheless, here's to blossoming in May! Check out what everyone else is posting here.