Alicia Abdul

I got a hobby

A while back I saw this Instagram post from NPR with the needlepoint “get a hobby” and the subsequent explanation that research shows that providing opportunities for meaningful hobbies improves mental health including “strengthening our sense of connection, identity, and our autonomy.” I saved it because I knew I wanted to address this in a post.

It also goes hand-in-hand with one particular professional book study I’m running at my high school for staff using Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element, which discusses finding your passions and your tribes of people within these passions whether they end up being something you get paid to do or that are simply hobbies or intelligences you have and use.

While some of my hobbies are quite evident (reading, for instance) others are generally traditional like baking. I also carve out time to visit old cemeteries for the history and information they provide about the past. And I’ll always return to what Professor Iwasaki shared in that Instagram post about how it strengthens our sense of identity.

I am a reader.

I am a baker.

I am a cemetery-enthusiast.

And in plenty of reading I’ve done lately about being less distractible or creating new/better habits or any of the other myriad of social psychology and self-help that I enjoy learning from, usually also goes back to identity. What are you? I am…

And I can show you the ways that I am a reader based on my holds list at the library, my TBR pile sitting behind me, my accoutrements for reading including book weights and page holders for my thumb, plus accessories like my “reading is sexy” button and t-shirts. It is because I carve out time every day to read. My social media handle is related to books and I have a public Instagram just for sharing about books (and dresses). I am dress-obsessed, too. But back to books, it’s that I have a ready-made book recommendation should someone need one, always. And I can always talk about them. Simply, it is part of my identity.

I’d love to know from readers, what identities do you have built from the hobbies you love?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on August 4, 2021 in Articles, Blogging, Miscellaneous

Outstanding book of the month for July 2021

31 Jul

I’m cheating a little for this month and choosing one graphic novel, one adult nonfiction, and one fiction title for my outstanding book(s) because I had some fabulous reading material (including the secret kind that I can’t tell you about). So here goes for the month:

This memoir is spectacular for its honesty and storytelling. Rosser grew up in West Philadelphia in a large single-parent family and discovered his love and talent for polo when his brother stumbled upon the Work to Ride program set up nearby. Rosser shares the discrimination he and his teammates faced as a Black team but also the resilience of a love of a larger community that wanted to see kids succeed.

I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish the finale to Lee’s Montague Siblings trilogy because it had all of the spectacular action and adventure, wit and tenacity as the first two. It was a delightful end as you follow the much younger Montague sibling (who didn’t know Monty and Felicity existed until the start of this book) on a fact-finding mission about his mother’s death and the spyglass that she had once carried everywhere.

You’ve got to appreciate sass and Charlotte’s got it in spades. She’s a teen detective on her way to *hopefully* win an award for her work until she’s caught up in a plot to frame her and take her down. Boom! Studios is always a favorite of mine with much of what they put out because I vibe with their artistry and bright colors, but also their spunky characters. This one didn’t fail as I continue reading the issues via Hoopla.

What were your favorites of the month?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 31, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Book of the Month, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Young Adult

At what speed do you read?

16 Jul

I listen to quite a few audiobooks, preferring to listen in the car, while doing housework, getting ready in the mornings, and when I walk the dog. I’ve recently borrowed 30-hour audiobooks (an Ernest Hemingway biography) and last year the 24-hour Moby Dick. Then there was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s newest called Notes on Grief that was a little more than one hour. I know I move through audiobooks quickly because I am a reader and I can always find time to read, but I also set the speed to 1.25 and sometimes (if I can get away with it depending on the narrator and topic) 1.5. It’s been too long since I’ve listened at 1x speed. At what speed do you read?

Plus I read quite a few books too. It’s kind of the reason I have this blog, to talk about books, reading, and school librarianship. So that shouldn’t be surprising. I move through picture books, middle grade, YA, and adult with fluidity based on mood but also out of necessity as I’m current on an award committee that has a strict reading requirement, but I also review for professional magazines, and obviously for readers advisory for my students. Some books are comfortably formulaic and don’t require as much effort. I find myself reading shallowly with some so that I can indulge more languidly with others. Yet, I still read more than the average person. Most notably, during the pandemic (of which I’ve written about here), I read at least one book a day for over a year. It adds up to quite a lot. And it’s not to compete with others, it’s simply how I like to do my reading and feel on top of my game. There are times that others have commented about how much I read and my usual response is something along the lines of we make time for what we love and value. Their comment is usually followed by what a slow reader they are and my response to that is so what? Which led to this post and this question: at what speed do you read?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 16, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Reflections

A win for rainy days

12 Jul

My Twitter poll question from two days ago was

Best reading weather?

And the official results from my six voters was that a rainy day beats pure summer sunshine or light white snowfall. And now since we’re on the twelfth day of July with ten of the twelve days resulting in measurable rainfall, I’d say that it is unavoidable at this point but completely true. There is nothing better than rainy day reading. So excuse me while I go do that.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 12, 2021 in Miscellaneous

Outstanding book of the month for June 2021

30 Jun

I knew I wasn’t going to create my book of the month post yesterday to post for today because I was in the middle of the book I was going to bestow that title to. I would carve out time today after an early morning walk with my librarian friend, Stacey, a little food shopping, and some other reading, to finish this book. And I was not wrong. And I was not disappointed. Behold, my June selection!

Published this past August, I have been on the wait list at the public library for quite some time. Once it came in, I brought it home and immediately felt the apprehensiveness of cracking the spine because I could feel the magnetic pulse of a book that would move me.

Nezhukumatathil is a poet, so it’s without question that she has a command of words. And as an avid lover of nature as evidenced by these vignettes, she has a command for sharing it with others. She’s like a literary Sy Montgomery and I say that as kindness for both. Montgomery is a scrapper, woman’s woman scientist who gets her hands dirty, her armpits sweaty in the forest, and rolls up her sleeves for the work. Who then parlays that into fascinating books for kids (and adults) about her adventures and learning from tarantulas to octopus. Nezhukumatathil is an explorer and an observer who won’t shy away from the experience, but isn’t in it for the scientific study but rather the enlightenment it will provide. And that is equally beautiful.

The vignettes of birds, plants, and animals are only several pages in length but leave a life lesson within each that pulls the reader closer to nature and asks the existential questions along with it. The writing was magical. The descriptions were breathtaking. And the muted illustration was a cherry on top to this tiny but powerful book.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on June 30, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Book of the Month, Cover Love, Nonfiction

Five lessons from a pandemic school year

25 Jun

Have a series of things that allow you the room to be happy outside of school; as simple as a delicious smelling bath salt for a Sunday night soak or a bevy of plant babies that make your living space feel like a walk in nature.
Support your colleagues. You might want to scream but others are already and your support supports others and then in turn makes you feel supported as well.
Smile. I believe in faking it until you make it and it starts with a smile.
Work is not the only thing. Yes, my identity is absolutely wrapped up in my being a school librarian, but it is not the only thing. That means not answering an email at 9pm (or sending one either) or leaving on time.
Remember the good things. And that means keeping a work gratitude journal or creating a folder to save congratulatory or thank you messages in which people sing your praises or having a folder to put in student work given to you in appreciation. And then go back and revisit it. As often as necessary.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on June 25, 2021 in Miscellaneous, Reflections

Outstanding book of the month for May 2021

31 May

More novella than novel, Sy Montgomery wins my heart over again with her magical storytelling about the most nonmagical magic– the natural world. Clocking in at 96 pages or just about two hours on audiobook, her newest: The Hummingbird’s Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and the Renewal on Wings is a special gift for readers and why it’s my favorite for the month.

Her deep connections to the animal world allowed her to weave her scientific escapades with her art of writing that allows the couch scientist to experience animals hidden deep inside jungles or the ones that we rarely think about right outside our windows. This story is a rescue mission; the rehabilitation of several hummingbirds by a friend of hers while she was able to help caretake alongside. The interwoven history of hummingbirds and their significance to groups worldwide is evidenced by their names in other cultures is given equal status in the book with the health of the bird’s of the story.

My recommendation would be to listen to Montgomery tell you the story via the audiobook version as I did because nothing can replace the emotional and logical approach to keeping the hummingbird’s alive. It’s an action-adventure in real life– will they or won’t they survive? What is the ethics of saving them? How do they experience the world? It’s all packed in this slim volume that feels as luxurious as a bite of dark chocolate.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on May 31, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Book of the Month, Nonfiction

Always in the background

17 May

In the ebb and flow of a year and within that a school year, there are days, weeks, and months that are chill and others that you wish you had an additional few hours or few hands. The balance of personal and professional living is necessary. So is adequate sleep. Yet, my identity is a reader. So reading is always in the background.

Here are some titles that I’ve been reading in that background…

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
- A fabulous narrative nonfiction to teach the average citizen about the community of fungi that sustain our world.
The Leak by Kate Reed Petty
- This middle grade graphic novel is an adorable mashup of Goldie Vance with the power of Erin Brockovich.
Smashed by Junji Ito
- Horror manga? I was scared reading it in broad daylight eating lunch in the school library.
Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter
- A hopeful middle grade graphic novel that allows those with allergies to be seen.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
- As I mentioned in my Goodreads review– I’m already a subscriber to the importance of sleeping well, but this still provided plenty of thought-provoking elements about the evolution of sleep and changes that need to be made in our screen-loving new age.
Switch by A.S. King
- The queen of the indirect, King’s new YA novel feels so 2020 it’s scary.
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen
- When I read this, it was what I needed as a mental break because of the humor it possesses, yet it still taught me about the science of getting better, warts and all…
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
- The hype is spot-on. Get ye to the store to buy this new magical middle grade series.
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
- I like a good essay collection and this one had plenty of ponder.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on May 17, 2021 in Miscellaneous

Peanut butter finds its jelly, again

12 Apr

In September, I didn’t write about the horrific blow that was dealt– the loss of my co-librarian, partner-in-crime to budgetary cuts due in part to the pandemic. The 2020-21 school year would have been our sixth year together making magic in the library with our high schoolers.

I didn’t write about it because it was a painful experience which didn’t happen directly to me and I wasn’t going to write her story. Maybe a future post will be a guest post of hers.

I’m writing about it now because tomorrow the reset button will be hit. She will be back in the building, in the library, and with me. It will look different because we’ve lost of our teaching assistant, all of the students are not back in the building, and there are serious renovations happening right outside the library as part of a massive construction project projected to finish in another five years.

Though we will fall into the same routines of planning, prepping, teaching, and booktalking because we’re peanut butter and jelly, Bert and Ernie, pen and paper, thunder and lightning (you get the idea)– better together. For our students. For our professional selves. Personally.

But I will also be different.

As I’m sure she will be. Changed by a pandemic, institutional choices, money.

How have you been changed by the items above? What stories do you have to tell?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on April 12, 2021 in Miscellaneous, Reflections

Outstanding book of the month for March 2021

31 Mar

Is it that time again? Looking at my calendar, it is! My outstanding pick was a recommendation from a kindred book friend who said I must listen to the audiobook. Now I’m recommending it to anyone who will listen that you must listen to the audiobook.

I was crushing on Barrie Kreinik and Peter Ganim who narrate Nancy Wake and Henri Fiocca. Kreinik brought the French accent by way of New Zealand perfectly along with the zest and spunk of the real-life Nancy Wake that Ariel Lawhon presents to readers in Code Name Helene. Wake was a woman on a mission of resistance living many lives at once at the onset of World War II. And Fiocca was the man she fell in love with and married. Ganim brings the sex appeal to their romance through the ears from the pages.

It’s not often that I feel a certain way about narrators as my friend Stacey Rattner does, but when they’re good, I can see how it can happen. Yet their presentation can only be built from the impassioned foundation of Lawhon herself to approach this subject matter. I was lost in the details, the adventure, the romance, the espionage. It was dangerous and it sometimes had to be funny. It needed to be bawdy but also indulgent. And the treachery!

If I’ve said nothing that has stuck, remember this: listen to Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on March 31, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Book of the Month, Fiction