RSS

Category Archives: Blogging

Big Macanudo feelings

Liniers is an Argentine cartoonist who creates the Macanudo comic strip.

Several years ago the local newspaper began printing it in the comics section and I was instantly hooked because a frequently-used character is Henrietta who has a sidekick cat named Fellini and also a teddy bear named Mandelbaum. She is a reader and the comics featuring her usually feature her reading (in bed, in nature) and pondering the world of books and mining the depths of her imagination. Last week’s hit me, as it would with many readers, hard with its snapshot of our relationship with reading.

Simply, it’s all about the feelings.

I read plenty. I also know plenty of readers and in discussing books find that their ability to remember details (like the plot) are much stronger than mine. I usually remember the details that resonated with me and always always the feeling when I finished it; awestruck, quiet, emotional, frustrated, and the list goes on.

Coincidentally, I’ve been engaged in work with my school district through Yale’s RULER, which is a systemic approach to social emotional learning that begins with the staff and then works its way down to the students. What I’ve learned is that I don’t know much about emotions. And like one participate shared yesterday, the kids are actually better at it than the adults are. I’m learning every day to be able to be that “emotional scientist” takes work especially in being able to appropriately name the actual emotion that you might be feeling at a specific moment. It’s hard work but I’m here for it.

Somehow I think Henrietta is a pretty good judge, as her little girl self, with feeling her feelings especially when they come to books. I would like to think that she, like me, has bookshelves upon bookshelves that are there for very specific reasons because they elicited very specific feelings from them. The Virgin Suicides by Eugenides? Epic sadness with a twinge of desperation and longing. Challenger Deep by Shusterman? Deeply moved by Caden’s internal struggle.

Are you like Henrietta and me and remember the feelings from the books stronger or are you the type of reader that remembers the plot, setting, and characters primary and the feelings secondary?

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on August 6, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Reflections

I got a hobby

04 Aug

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?

Leave a comment

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

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?

2 Comments

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

With all those books

15 Mar

Yesterday’s post was a celebration of reading at least a book a day for 365 straight days. I’ll continue though the rigidity will likely wane, but not today where I was able to finish an audiobook and read two additional books. It got me thinking, how many books did I read over 365 days? That answer was 852 which meant I averaged 2.3342 books per day. What were my favorites? See below. How to you find the time? Well, I have my ways. Therefore, a summary post was in order because I like a good listicle. Here are some mini-listicles about “my year of reading a book a day”.

Locations for reading

Car (audiobooks, people!)
Wherever I have to wait– an office or a long line for example
Anywhere in the house from the kitchen table to standing by the stove waiting for my hot water to boil but also most definitely when I’m cleaning or cooking
The lunch table at work (I often post with the hashtag #literarylunchbox)

Twenty favorites (in no particular order)

Punching the Air by Zoboi
You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters by Murphy
Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation by Cooper
Witch Hat Atelier by Shirahama
Skyward by Henderson
The School of Essential Ingredients by Bauermeister
All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Soontornvat
The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe
My Life in Dog Years by Paulsen
The Midnight Library by Haig
That Way Madness Lies edited by Adler
Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Parker
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Baum
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Tran
My Life in France by Child with Prud’Homme
The House in the Cerulean Sea by Klune
Fighting Words by Brubaker Bradley
Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights by Blumenthal
End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Swanson
Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise edited by Silverman
The Beauty in Breaking by Harper
Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius by Holiday
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Brown
Chicken Every Sunday: My Life with Mothers Boarders by Taylor
Fangs by Andersen

But how did you do it?

Read (and by reading I mean eyes on a page or ears open) every day
Always have a stack of books in the house or in a queue online
Sometimes reading won out over straightening up the house, for sure
Encourage a household of readers (because it’s easier to read yourself when everyone else is doing it too)
Participating in events like the Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon and the #24in48 readathon

What genre or category do you favor? (but really this is like asking me to pick a favorite child)

Nonfiction
- Food memoirs
- Animals especially histories, discoveries, and celebrations of
Young Adult short story collections
Verse novel and graphic novel formats
Fiction
- Historical
- Realistic

Who were your cheerleaders? (whether they knew it or not)

Stacey Rattner, a school librarian colleague who I often co-present with at conferences with her own blog and the co-host of the pandemic-inspired Author Fan Faceoff with Steve Sheinkin
My kids, readers in their own right, who read at the table for almost every meal and so many other occasions and places too
Reading communities big and small

Was there a question that I missed? If there was, ask me in the comments.

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on March 15, 2021 in Blogging, Fiction, Graphic novels, Manga, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Reflections, Short Story, Upcoming Releases, Verse, Young Adult

No one asked me, but

11 Jan

In subscribing to a handful of blogs and reading websites, following hashtags on Instagram, and reading professional magazines for librarians, I spend time each day skimming or deep-reading articles and short snippets of reviews and recommendations. Several days ago, Senjuti Patra published an article “A Brief History of Reading” via Book Riot. Several passages struck me and I wanted to share my thoughts. Yes, no one asked me, but I’m going to share them anyway.

The earliest written texts were meant to be read out loud. The characters were written in a continuous stream, to be disentangled by the skilled reader when reading out loud. Punctuation was used for the first time only around 200 BCE, and was erratic well into the middle ages.

This fascinated me, but it makes sense that the development of writing taken from the oral traditions wouldn’t have been fully formed. And even now, things continue to develop and morph. It truly centered around the reader and a skilled one at that. Someone who would practice ahead of time and deliver it with gusto because it was a form of entertainment or to deliver information that anyone could understand.

Reading from a book was considered pleasant dinnertime entertainment, even in humbler homes, from the Roman times to the 19th century.

Let’s bring this back. Seriously. I’m thinking that once a week, we’ll turn off the news and instead listen to a family-friendly audiobook. What would you suggest?

Once primary education became more accessible and acceptable, younger members of the family read to the elders, in a sweet reversal of the classic grandma’s tales.

The minute I read this sentence I remembered the scenes (I’m sure they were in the book but I automatically conjured the movie in my mind) from Little Women in which Jo was heading to the home of an older relative (her great aunt?) to read and dreading it, but how important it was for the connection between generations. It allowed the youth to practice their skills and benefited the old who might have had failing eyesight but also wanted the companionship. I’m assuming technology has stepped in in some ways and someone older is just pulling an audiobook up, but what a thought that books like card games can bring everyone together.

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 11, 2021 in Articles, Blogging, Quotes, Reflections

Outstanding book of the month for December 2020

31 Dec

The end of 2020 brings a lot of things including the last few days in which I’ve shared my top 10’s. But that doesn’t mean I’d skip an outstanding book of the month– because it’s just my favorite book of the month that doesn’t necessarily have to be published in that month (or year) for that matter.

Linda Sue Park wanted to tell a different kind of story on the prairie than the one that’s been around for quite some time. And tell the story she does. Hanna’s journey from California after the death of her mother with her father to settle in a small Midwest town would be enough for most young girls, but Hanna is half Asian and settlers don’t look kindly on her heritage.

All she wants to do is get her diploma and then make dresses but townspeople are making it hard for her. Everywhere she turns is another micro or macroaggression. In Park’s capable hands a riveting story emerges that has a comfortable pace and a deep message about the experiences of all Americans past or present.

Hanna is a strong female lead who shares with readers the difficult experiences growing up in California and then the Plains.

So many had shared their love for the book, so I was happy to read it digitally during the month of December. I’ve got my last book of the year prepped in addition to my first of 2021. What about you?

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 31, 2020 in Blogging, Book of the Month, Cover Love, Fiction, Middle grade

Top 10 of 2020: The extra edition

28 Dec

It’s not as much about saving the best for last as using it as the last opportunity to highlight the coolest books that came out in 2020 that defy categories. If you’ve stuck with me over the last few days, I appreciate your willingness to read through my picks and share yours with me too. With this, is there anything that you’re looking forward to in 2021?

Home Body by Kaur
- I had it in my hands the day after it was published because Kaur puts it all out there with her poetry and artwork that make you laugh, cry, and just plain feel.
Dancing at the Pity Party by Feder
- This graphic memoir brings up all of the pain that any child who lost a parent young must feel with dark humor and heaps of love.
Once Upon an Eid edited by Ali and Saeed
- One of the first books I read in 2020, the anthology sparkles and shines on Muslim writers and the culture and religion in their celebration of Eid.
You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Murphy
- It goes without saying that I liked listening to this book about listening. Murphy touches on aspects of our inability to listen that you hope to internalize as a reader to help you improve yourself.
Fights: One Boy’s Triumph over Violence by Gill
- I’ve read his other graphic nonfiction and was surprised that this was his memoir until I got into it and thought that everyone should read it. Gill’s raw demonstration of a boy on the wrong path is a testament to growth and maturity.
Girl From the Other Side (Volume 8) by Nagabe
- I’m ready for volumes nine and ten whenever they get published here in the United States. The haunting darkness of the other side and the saccharine relationship between Teacher and Shiva create a rich atmosphere and intriguing storyline.
When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Parker
- This was my book of the month in October. Parker’s humorous approach to serious mathematical issues encourages everyone to pay attention to why math matters.
Dear Justyce by Stone
- Stronger than her first, this epistolary novel punches you in the gut as Quan and Justyce write to each other.
Go With the Flow by Williams and Schneemann
- A graphic novel about periods, sign me up. Their approach using female friendship and activism is the kind of story any middle graders should read.
This Book is Antiracist by Jewell
- The choice of layout and color scheme enhances the message about antiracism that’s a workbook for working on yourself.

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 28, 2020 in Adult, Blogging, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Poetry, Young Adult

Top 10 of 2020: Nonfiction edition

27 Dec

What did you think of yesterday’s young adult fiction list? Anything you agree or disagree with? Up today is nonfiction. I read widely in this genre so it’s not organized in any particular way from children’s through adult, simply my favorite 10 published in 2020 because there’s nothing more spectacular than learning from the people, places, and things that you read about.

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys Soccer Team by Soontornvat
- I know the outcome but I’m still in the cave with the boys and out of the cave with the rescuers every minute that Soontornvat writes this out.
Beauty Mark by Weatherford
- Most younger readers won’t know Marilyn Monroe, but this verse novel biography is more about her ability to overcome immense adversity rather than about who she was as a celebrity.
The Beauty in Breaking by Harper
- Tugging at every heart string you have, Harper details her life, her work in medicine, and her self care routines while fighting against racism in healthcare.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You adapted by Reynolds
- One word: listen. If you haven’t listened to Reynolds read the book, you haven’t really read the book. Then do what I did and read the book too. And then make sure everyone else does too.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by Johnson
- Using essays to share his life’s story was the perfect choice for this new voice in literature about his upbringing as a queer Black man.
Lifting As We Climb by Dionne
- When the whole story isn’t told, Dionne decides to tell it. The story which was important as election season ramped up, she goes back in time to talk about the Black women’s fight for the right to vote.
A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Cooper
- You can’t get more inspirational and heartfelt than the story being told by one of the rowers on this first all-Black high school rowing team from Chicago. Sports story with heart.
Becoming a Good Creature by Montgomery
- Creating a picture book from her adult biography in thirteen animals, the artwork compliments the storytelling and makes you appreciate what animals can teach us about being human.
Wisdom of the Humble Jellyfish: And Other Self-Care Rituals from Nature by Shah
- This was a sleeper hit for me and a quick audiobook I listened to during a readathon this summer. Similar to Montgomery’s book, sometimes we have to look toward non-humans to help us be better humans.
You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Coe
- A female biographer’s approach to telling George Washington’s story is equally fascinating to learn it from her perspective as it was to provide the best humor to learning about a founding father with one of the punniest title for a book.

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 27, 2020 in Adult, Blogging, Childrens, Cover Love, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Verse, Young Adult

Top 10 of 2020: YA fiction edition

26 Dec

There’s nothing like the end of the year lists, pictures, and stories to review the year. If you’re not a fan, then you might as well stop reading now and ignore the next few days worth of posts. First up, my top 10 of young adult fiction, tomorrow is nonfiction that spans all levels, and last will be my “extra edition”. As always, my top 10 lists are not what I read (which was a lot) in 2020 and finding my top 10, this is a true top 10 in which all of the books published were published in 2020. Though the order is not noteworthy. You’re already asking me to pick from the multitudes, I simply can’t also then rank them.

More Than Just a Pretty Face by Masood
- This was my book of the month in June. There’s just something about this hard-hitting story with loveable leads.
Fighting Words by Bradley
- Gut-wrenching situation in which two sisters are feeling their way through the foster care system after experiencing trauma.
Punching the Air by Zoboi and Salaam
- Captivating drama that could be ripped from the headlines with discussable elements about the prison system and juvenile justice.
Every Body Looking by Iloh
- Iloh heavily borrows from her own upbringing for this verse novel about religion, family, and growing up and into yourself.
Watch Over Me by LaCour
- The magical realism coupled with the main character’s loneliness is a whole mood.
Show Me A Sign by LeZotte
- Historical fiction? Sounds like the kind of thing more people should know about and that’s why LeZotte works an unimaginable story based on true events.
Crownchasers by Coffindaffer
- The first in a planned duology, I’m not always the first one to pick up science fiction but the action and a sassy female lead makes it a must.
Cinderella is Dead by Byron
- This was my book of the month in July. Retellings are imaginative and this one makes sure to infuse fantasy and dystopia.
Darius the Great Deserves Better by Khorram
- It’s even stronger than Khorram’s introduction of Darius to readers because of the liveliness of Darius’ internal dialogue.
Verona Comics by Duggan
- An underrated author in YA fiction, this salty/sweet play on Romeo and Juliet delights.

Leave a comment

Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 26, 2020 in Blogging, Cover Love, Fiction, Young Adult

Upon reflection, a meaningful change

22 Nov

What better way to celebrate a few tweaks and changes than on a day that’s made for celebration anyway. Birthdays make me reflect, just like New Years, and the first day of each school year, and a few other random times that are ripe for new beginnings– an opportunity to improve, shift, focus, and change.

I have been thinking for a while about how I want to use the blog moving forward and I’m proposing a small but meaningful shift. I want to focus on the journey of learning. The endless quest to know more. The celebration of curiosity inspired by John Dewey’s quote

“Education is not preparation for life; it is life itself.”

I want to examine the work I do in school librarianship, reading, and life experiences through this lens. One that is similar to Asimov’s “education isn’t something you can finish.” I firmly believe this and look to any adventure I have as an education.

You’ll see a few changes to what I post and the lens I’m looking through, but it’s still me. The high school librarian of close to fifteen years who doesn’t consider my job work because I’m trying to always have fun. Someone who reads vivaciously. And someone who continually looks to improve through reflection and introspection, which is why I started this blog so many years ago.

And I’m ushering in this new wave by sharing an amazing piece commissioned by my former student, Maxine. She captures the essence of my being: dressed and in heels among books and baked goods.