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Category Archives: Reflections

The February friendship tour

This time last year I was beginning my friendship tour. Seriously, that’s what I called it. And it seems prescient upon reflection. I spent my February break from school visiting each of my closest friends be it for tea, a meal, or a stop at the house to catch up. And I made sure I saw everyone on that mental list even if I had to track down the last of them after she returned from Spain in a supermarket. And it filled my cup in ways that are immeasurable.

I also made sure to take a picture with her too because all too often, I have my phone tucked away with good friends and don’t get pictures. When I think about my friendship tour now, I get goosebumps. I saw everyone and got the picture to prove it.

I was hoping to include a review of a book on friendship with a post about the power of friendship and my favorite books that highlight the bond. Unfortunately the book was less focused on human friendship and more about animal friendship from an evolutionary standpoint so instead I’m going to share my six recently-read favorite titles featuring unique or strong friendships and spare you a review of the other book:

Go With the Flow by Schneemann and Williams
Heavy Vinyl by Usdin and Vakueva
The One and Only Bob by Applegate
The House in the Cerulean Sea by Klune
Pumpkin by Murphy (not yet published)
In the Wild Light by Zentner (not yet published)

Who are your favorite friendships in books you’ve recently read? It’s important when recommending books to teens to talk about friendships, so a few years ago I created a bookshelf on my Goodreads account to capture this.

Equally important is to keep in touch with those that you’ve formed friendships with whether you’ve been connected since middle school or met as coworkers and connected. Who are your closest friends? What do they give you? Whether you’re celebrating Galentine’s Day today, tomorrow on the 14th, or every day. Cheers to friendship in literature or in life.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 13, 2021 in Fiction, Graphic novels, Middle grade, Miscellaneous, Reflections, Upcoming Releases, Young Adult

Classic reading

29 Jan

It’s easy to feel like you’re not a serious reader if you don’t have a list of classics that you can readily discuss the merits of because you’ve read them and adored them.

I consider myself a serious reader and realize all of the classics that I’ve never read and instead of feeling bad about it, I add them to my list when the mood strikes me and I’ll get to them when I feel like it. I’ve written before about being a mood reader. Recently, I’ve been in the mood for a few classics: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Each was inspired by another book that finally pushed me to read them. For Moby Dick it was Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. For Silent Spring it was Bryan Walsh’s End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Asteroids, Super Volcanoes, Rogue Robots, and More. For The Wonderful Wizard of Oz it was Marvel’s adaptation of the book into a graphic novel by Eric Shanower and illustrated by Skottie Young.

There’s often a push to read a classic before you’re ready for it, simply because it’s a classic. There is such a thing as the time being right: I remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and hating it, then reading it in college and loving it. Would I have been ready for Moby Dick 10 or 15 years ago? Probably not. But I wanted to now and that has made all the difference.

And the receptivity to the book has to play a part in the enjoyment of reading, which is why it is important that kids have choice in their reading because choice (be it mood, interest, level, background) plays a part in how we read the book. Have you read Frankenstein to an adult is akin to have you read Harry Potter to a kid. Not all are interested nor ready for it and that’s okay. We will be some day. Or not.

Give yourself a break if you’re staring at the stack of oldies that you should read but aren’t. You’ll be ready one day. Or not. And that’s okay. But if you are, enjoy the ride. Know your own reading life. And know when to read that book recommended by a friend or that classic or that book that’s been sitting on your TBR for three years.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 29, 2021 in Adult, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Reflections

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.

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

Finding passion

03 Jan

Netflix is the pleasure I reserve for early morning workouts on the elliptical in the garage and Friday and Saturday nights usually. Netflix in the mornings is whatever I want to watch while the weekend watching is usually with my husband and sometimes even the kids. Last night we watched two episodes of two different series: one called The Surgeon’s Cut (episode two “Sacred Brain”) and one Chef’s Table: BBQ (episode two “Lennox Hastie”).

My takeaway from the first series having watched the first episode as well as the second now is that the body is an amazing thing. Having recently read the deeply bibliotherapeutic memoir The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper, I can’t help but connect the two. The doctors in the docuseries and of her own memoir are passionate about their work because they can throw themselves into something that helps others when they themselves needed a hero growing up– for each of them, they became their own rescuer and in that metamorphosis, they now fight for others. A powerful message indeed.

My takeaway from the second series you can likely connect to my affinity for reading food memoirs which I’ve shared extensively here and on the other blogs I contribute to. Especially this second episode, Lennox Hastie has created something entirely his own for his own benefit– the love of the heat of an open flame and his restaurant that took a career to open in Australia– is all flame-cooked from the salad to the dessert. Whether it was the crafters of the episode and thus the series or Hastie himself, the episode hit me deep down. His quest for scrumptiousness and his enjoyment in watching others moan with the pleasure of the taste sensations is the chase that he yearns for. But it is more than pleasing others, there is also a deep satisfaction with himself in the process of exploring and creating that should be honed. Everyone should find their passion the way he has. It’s the constant practice that connected me to one of the last books of 2020 that I listened to: James Clear’s Atomic Habits coupled with Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks.

How do we unlock our passions? How do we keep the drive alive to excel and find our purpose? What is your story?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 3, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Nonfiction, Reflections, Shows

Really old things

09 Dec

As much as I’m a homebody, I like a good adventure. Specifically, one that will teach me something. And this likely stems from my childhood since we were not the family whose vacations were vegging out on a beach or waiting in the long lines of a theme park, we were the family that went to places like “the Grand Canyon of the east” and Gettysburg.

Maybe that’s why I became a librarian. Endless learning possibilities.

48 Hudson Ave. What you see is a mockup of the original structure for preservation purposes.

I’ve built my own family and (not ironically), we have the same adventures. I also have a fellow librarian who likes learning adventures that usually also include a good drink or spectacular food too. This past Friday night, we spent a bundled up half an hour touring the oldest Dutch home in our area in desperate need of restoration to return it to its former glory. But not to make it a museum. Instead, the historic foundation would like to make sure it’s used as a soft space appreciating the history and glory while being functional. So often we throw away things that are old or unusable. Heck, I still guiltily think about my first year as a school librarian saying “get it out of here!” to the overpowering but beautiful card catalog holding up a few computers. It was the best decision to find it a new home, but I think about it from time to time. The stories it held, the kids hands who touched it, the years it had seen.

Kind of like the stories that are told in What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object that Brings them Joy, Magic, and Meaning by Bill Shapiro. Just like this Dutch home that had seen families and industry, been remodeled and redone, only to be discovered again. What stories it holds.

What can you discover around your area, especially the old things, the often overlooked things?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 9, 2020 in Reflections