I’ve got a real hankering for colder weather, soups, boots, sweaters, and warm blankets. Wanting to keep those cozy fall vibes I’ve got running through me right now, I decided to pick up a children’s book I’ve never read before: Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. After three pages I read a line out loud to a coworker early one morning before school had started. She had read the book before (all of them, actually) and knew exactly what this fascination was all about. I don’t know that I would have appreciated it as a child and been so mesmerized by the prose, but I am positively delighted every time I open this book.
This week in my third grade class I started the book, Stuart Little by E. B. White. I have never read it and not one of my students has read it or had it read to them. This got me wondering if they read at home or if they’re read to. I’ll be honest, I can’t remember bedtime rituals from when I was a kid. I’m sure we had story time, but I mostly remember looking at books by myself. There was exposure to literature, but I don’t recall any specific books (especially chapter books) that I couldn’t wait to read each night.
As someone who has grown up to enjoy reading for pleasure, I wonder how that gets supplanted into us. I’m trying to instill in these students of mine how much fun a good story can be, and one that comes from a page and not a screen. I do my best to be animated and explain things that are unfamiliar to them, but will these basketball-loving boys really sit down with a novel and critically think about it one day? I sure hope so. I hope they can look back on their school life and imagine Mrs. Norman reading a book they enjoyed. I hope they get an enthusiastic high school teacher who introduces them to novels and Shakespeare and songwriters and people who know how to tell a great story. So whether they are reading at home or being read to or not, I hope they can be great readers and lovers of literature just through my excitement of books and sharing them. If only they were older, I’d probably read about Anne to them. Hopefully they’ll discover her just as I have- at exactly the right time.
Want to know what else is fallish? New booties! I’ve been wearing the same neutral pair for about three years, so I scooped up a new pair and they arrived this week.
Cute huh? I particularly like the two-toned look to them and the lower heel makes them perfect for work and play.
One more unexpected bit of fall goodness is the show Only Murders in the Building. The characters are all wearing sweaters and boots, and you can tell it’s cold in New York making me feel like it’s perfect to watch when it’s cold out. Or at least watch it when you want it to be cold out. I was chatting with some girlfriends and this show got brought up. Listen, Paul and I are relatively simple people and are basically 80 years old in that we record Jeopardy everyday and watch an episode each night. Well, right now reruns are running until September, and we have nothing to watch. Enter Trawick and her suggestion of Only Murders in the Building. It’s funny- Steve Martin and Martin Short- and it’s only half hour long episodes. We were hooked after just one. Watch it on Hulu.
I’m going to wrap up this weekend by reading a bit more about Green Gables, make a pot of soup (this recipe and adding in an onion just because I like it better that way), and enjoy the fact that Paul helped me tag team the house cleaning yesterday. ❤ I love a clean house to start the week.
Have a great one, y’all.
