My bedrock belief is that books change lives. This belief is affirmed every single school year. This year Blake connected with Jem and Scout in a way that he never thought possible; Katie keeps several books going at a time; Cat rediscovered her love of reading and is seldom without a book in hand, and Maria laughed with me when I told her it was okay that her dog chewed the corner of Shiver (a book about werewolves; it’s an irony thing.) Chris keeps reminding me that I promised a poem a day-even though he only does it when we’re on the verge of starting something he doesn’t want to do.

Readers know something that other people can’t understand. We know that books contain entire worlds within them. We know that we can escape in them, that we can find answers, that we can, in the words of W.P. Kinsella “ease his pain.”

My childhood is defined by the horses in my life and the horse books that I read. I read every Walter Farley, Marguerite Henry, and C.W. Anderson book I could get into my hands. I supplemented my hands-on knowledge of horses with what I read in books. I studied British history through reading about Eclipse, father of the modern thoroughbred. I first learned of Ramadan when reading King of the Wind.

Several years ago my husband became concerned as I wept while reading a book. Tears poured down my face as I explained, “She wouldn’t stop; she would have lived if she had just stopped running!” I had been transported back to the 70s, sitting on the couch with my dad and grandfather as we watched Ruffian break down in her match race against Foolish Pleasure. The broken hearted teenage girl reappeared as I read Jane Schwartz’s Ruffian: Burning from the Start.

I sometimes share with my students the gut wrenching passage describing Ruffian’s breakdown, but I have to be careful. Every single time I read it, that teenage girl comes out of those pages, and I find myself choking back her tears.

And that is the crux of what I want for my students-I wish for every one of them that they carry some character, some storyline, some magical, wonderful place, or some great tragedy, with them for the rest of their lives.

Avoidance

Sitting at the kitchen counter
I should be grading papers
Instead
I'm watching that sorrel horse graze
In the bottom pasture.
Coastal's greening
And a light fog covers the hills
On the horizon
Antigone and Creon, Julius Caesar and Brutus and Marc Antony, Macbeth and Duncan
They all just needed
To sit and watch a horse graze

Jitters

It's been a crazy-busy summer with the house hunting and dealing with the off-brand insurance company handling the damage to Young Epic's truck, and that kept me from getting my normal back-to-school frission of excitment as early as I normally do. But now, the house deal is in the title company, and Young Epic, and his truck, have returned to Brownsville.

I've finished making the first day copies, and I have the second day stuff ready, my desk is mostly clean (as clean as it's gonna get), all the handouts have been loaded to my school website. I got new pens, and that ALWAYS makes me happy!

And now it's hit me. That wondeful butterflies-giddy-what-does-the-new-year-hold feeling. I chose to have seniors this year, for the first time in five years, and it's going to be fun having some of the same kiddos I had as freshmen.

So it's time to finish that last summer novel, and I'll start compiling the list of stuff I'll want to read next summer.

...or MAYBE...

...it's because the roofing guy next door came over and asked if the insurance company ever agreed to fix the roof. They didn't want to pay because they claim it was defective materials, not hail damage. And the ceiling of the garage collaped a while back. And the span of roof for the porte-cochere collapsed last year.

...or it could be because...

Your tri-level house has all of the bedrooms on the THIRD level.

You have a 600 square foot guest house that has NO BATHROOM. Do the guests just go potty in the pool?

Reasons People May Not be Making Offers to Buy Your House...

If you leave your massive dogs, who sound as if they would eat Cujo, in the utility room with a door latch that allows the door to open partially so their slavering maws can be seen, I'm probably not going to tour the entire house.

If the three children are at home with no adult supervision, they probably aren't going to leave the house in the shape it was before you left. Or you just didn't do any picking up before you left.

If you own property with lovely pasture land and a beautiful home, but people just don't make offers, it may be because you sold some of the land on the front, next to the drive, to someone who put in a double-wide.

Your beautiful home, with incredible trees and landscaping, is directly across the road from a setting straight out of The Grapes of Wrath. And that setting was there when you built the house.

Those two bedrooms on the far end of the house would be great-except there's no access to a bathroom on the same end of the house.

Your house is lovely. The neighbors with the raggedy travel trailer in the yard and knee high grass-not so much.

You added a garage, but there is no way to get into the back yard except THROUGH the garage...

I'm A Techie, Now!

I'm not a fan of modern technology. Okay, I know that's not really true-I don't want to do the laundry in a tub with a washboard-but I'm not a fan of the gadgets.

Until now.

Epic Husband convinced me to buy a Nook for myself. Oh, my. I may never purchase another paperback book again. I can read in bed, on my side, with the Nook on a pillow, and my glasses don't get shoved all cattywampus. And I can read an 800 page paperback with just one hand. And my thumb doesn't cramp when I'm on page 400 or so from trying to hold the book open. And I can increase the font size so I don't have to go buy the next higher magnification of reading glasses. Yet. And I don't have to fill Epic Dog's tote with books when we travel to baseball games.

I'll still buy some hardback books, but that's just because I love collecting books. For the actual reading, I'm hooked on the Nook!