Slice of Life

Today was an art day with my fifth grade students in the library. I forgot to take a photo, but we have five long strands of papel picado banners hanging in the library. On Friday, there will be even more after the sixth graders do it too. We're getting ready for the El día de los niños/El día de los libros celebration on Saturday. Here's a video from when I worked in WI and we celebrated Día eight years ago. 

 

It's really fun for the students to try different ways of folding and cutting to make the banners. We learn from Carmen Lomas Garza in this video tutorial.

I love any excuse to celebrate books and children so I'm always excited for April.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop hosted by Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. 

This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other. The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. 

The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts. 

I post about my reading here, at the YA blog Rich in Color and as crystalreading at Storygraph. 

The Past Week: I finished listening to Interabled: True Stories About Love and Disability from Squirmy and Grubs and Other Interabled Couples (Adult nonfiction) by Shane & Hannah Burcaw. It was great to hear so many love stories and I am thankful that they shared so much of themselves with the world. We have so much ableism to unlearn.

For the Trans Rights Readathon I read The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation (Adult memoir) by Raquel Willis in addition to Light from Uncommon Stars (Adult Sci-fi) by Ryka Aoki and I Shall Never Fall in Love (YA Jane Austen inspired graphic novel) by Hari Conner.

I finally read Sheine Lende, the prequel to Elatsoe which I loved, by Darcie Little Badger. This was another excellent middle grade/young adult title that had a little mystery, ghost animals, family, and friends.

I read an excellent middle grade novel about chronic pain and fencing - It's All of Nothing, Vale by Adrea Beatriz Arango. 

I finished Fledgling by S.K. Ali which is a dystopian YA and it was part of the Ramadan Readathon. It was great being in a group chat with many people reading it together in four portions so we didn't spoil things for each other. Many of the participants were Muslim so they noticed some things that went past me and it was nice to have that context. Some of them were also fans of S.K. Ali so they picked up on references to characters from her previous books. So cool. 

I read quite a few picture books and one that stood out was Niki Nakayama: A Chef's Tale in 13 Bites by Jamie Michalak & Debbi Michiko Florence with Yuko Jones. I love good books about food. 

Coming Up Next: I am currently reading Another Day in the Death of America for a book club, but I'm not sure what I will grab next. I have quite a stack from the many libraries I visited over break. Happy reading!

Slice of Life - One Last Bookish Post for Now

We made it to the end of March. It was filled with way more thoughts, feelings, activities, and smiles than I would have anticipated. There were also a few more sad, stressful, or frustrating moments than I would care to mention, but having slicers to interact with made the joy more full and the sadness less so. I've very much enjoyed the challenge of posting some bit of writing every day this month. I'm thankful to the organizers and all of the slicers for making this happen. 

I just finished up my Spring Break and am back to school today. It will be nice to see everyone again and chat about the happenings while we were away from each other. I will have so many bookish things to share. On the final day of break, I made a collage to celebrate some of that bookish energy. I was listening to a book podcast, Book Friends Forever with Grace Lin and Alvina Ling, while making it too. It was doubly bookish.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I wish you a wonderful last day of March and the Slicing Challenge for this year.

Slice of Life - Coming to the end

As the Slice of Life Challenge winds down, I am glad to have been a part of this community effort. It doesn't necessarily take up a huge portion of my time, but it has been something to remember each day. I am glad to have done it, but will also be glad to have one less thing to remember to do. I'll miss the daily interactions with other posts, but of course, I can still visit blogs any time I want to, I just know that I probably won't do it quite as often. 

I hope that I continue to look for the moments of joy and fulfillment in my daily life and share them either on the blog or with people around me. I also hope that I continue to write posts at least weekly. I had very rarely been posting this year and last so this has definitely reminded me that I have the ability to post more regularly. Thank you to everyone for visiting each other and supporting all of our efforts. It's been a great learning experience to do this for a second time after a ten year break. 

Do you think anything will change for you as we wrap up this adventure? 

 

Slice of Life - Bookish Adventures

I have managed to have many bookish activities over Spring Break and have even had outings each day too. Because my mother-in-law had a luncheon scheduled at our home today, I thought I wouldn't have time to have a bookish outing, but we finished up early in the afternoon. I was able to run downtown to catch the art exhibit someone at my book club had recommended. It was a small exhibit of June Daskalakis' work in the local art store. The pieces were collages and they each had something to do with books. It made me want to grab my supplies and start making things. I have so many bits and pieces of books available in my two school libraries and at the local public library friends sale, they always have boxes of misc. things that are free because they aren't useful for sales. I have always enjoyed collage, but haven't played with it for a long time. Maybe that could be my final bookish activity of Spring Break on Sunday. 

So far during break I have had these bookish experiences:

• exchanged books through an even sponsored by our local independent bookstore
• went to an author event at the library down the street
• visited the indie bookstore to buy books
• participated in a group chat on zoom about kidlit
• visited my local library multiple times
• went to the local university library for a tour
• viewed an exhibit of travel diaries at the design department
• met a librarian and visited the Native resource center at the next school district over
• visited five of the libraries in our county
• visited a library in the next county over 
• participated in the Ramadan Readathon by reading and chatting about Fledgling by S.K. Ali
• participated in the Trans Rights Readathon - by reading three graphic novels and two novels 
• worked on the blog I'm a part of - Rich in Color
• read eight picture books, two novels, and one nonfiction book outside of the readathons 

I'll see how many more bookish activities I can fit in before I head back to school on Monday. Is it obvious that I am a librarian?

Slice of Life - Libraries and History

Yesterday was another day filled with libraries and a bit more.

I started by going to another library in our county that I hadn't ever been too. It was a nice space, but I realized it was near a wine tasting room that has a deli I have heard about. Of course, that's where I headed next. 

I stopped by the deli for lunch and it was such a treat and it got me out of the rain for a bit. The soup and fresh bread was really delicious. I didn't want to do a wine tasting, but they also grow olives and I did my first olive oil tasting. They let you taste four different oils and then a few balsamic vinegars and a honey. Yum. The bottles of olive oil and elderberry balsamic cost more than my lunch, but I know it will be fun to cook with them. The business is owned and operated by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation who have been on this land for thousands of years. 

Next, I headed to another library and a small history museum. I learned a lot about the communities near the city where I live. In one city there had been about 100 families of Japanese descent prior to Executive Order 9066 that resulted in their internment. After that time of incarceration, only six families returned. 

I also found out about a city that no longer exists. There is a dam and lake nearby where a city used to be. The town was dismantled and everything was removed or burnt before they built the dam. It reminded me of the picture book by Loren Long called The Yellow Bus. In part of the book a valley gets flooded. The first time I read it, I wondered about the dam near us and if the land under it had been inhabited before it was built. 

Then, the person who had been sharing about these early communities let me know that there was yet another history museum in another small town nearby and I found out that they had a library there too. Happy day. It was another informative place and had even more information about the Wintun people.

There are so many things to learn about the land that we inhabit and who and what has been here before us. We moved to this area almost three years ago and I feel like there is still so much to learn. As an elementary school teacher it seems like these are really things I ought to know so that's how I've been spending a lot of my spring break days. I'm trying to get to know the backstory of this community and the land around it. Some of the history is good, like the way the local Native nation has found a way to diversify and make an amazing company that creates excellent oils and foods. Other history shows the way that humans have made others suffer. I look forward to meeting more people in the community and learning how to work together towards a future where we value each other and the other living and nonliving things in our community. 

Slice of Life - Beautiful Designs & Lovely Memories

Last week a family friend mentioned that his mother, Birgitta Olsen, had designed the logo for the independent bookstore that I visit multiple times a month. He mentioned that there is also a tapestry of hers at the city hall. I knew it would be something special to see.

A few days later, I stopped by city hall and asked when it was possible to see inside the council chambers. Generally it's not open to the public outside of council meetings or events, but someone had a moment and took me over to see this lovely piece of art. Our community is surrounded by farmland, wetlands, and mountains in the distance so this really seems a perfect fit. I've seen many of her tapestries and we even have one in our home that I love to look at. Almost all of the pieces that I've seen have nature involved. Here's a link to an exhibit with more of her artwork. I still remember seeing work on her loom in their home years ago. It was so nice to see this one that I hadn't known of before. I could hear her voice and see her smile as I stood looking at this view. 

And while writing this post, I was happy to find a video about her work along with that of her husband Helge Olsen.

Since I had a little time, I also rode over to the bookstore to look at her logo. I'm so glad that now I can think of her when visiting the store. I've also discovered that there may be another tapestry in one of the halls at the university so it looks like I have at least one more place to visit.