September Book Report: Top Secret 21 by Janet Evanovich

I am a fan of mystery novels and read a good number over the course of the year.    I like a mystery with a strong sense of place and it was this feature that first attracted me to the Stephanie Plum mysteries written by Janet Evanovich.  I’ve been reading the series for many years now; I started with the first book, One for the Money.  I first read it in 1996, when I was living in Nebraska.  The series, set in Trenton, New Jersey, was as far from home as I could imagine.  Filled with visits to Italian delis and Polish bakeries, the series were entertaining and clever, with great dialogue and a sense that both a happy ending and a trip to Cluck-in-a-Bucket would cure all of the heroine’s troubles.

21 novels later, I still find the series an easy read, always familiar and entertaining.  Though I couldn’t know it when I first began to read the novels, in 2002 I left Nebraska for New Jersey and moved to a house quite near the Chambersburg neighborhood in which Stephanie Plum is working.  There was no Cluck-in-a-Bucket but there was Cluck University and it sure looks (and tastes) as described in the books.  The bakeries were on nearly every corner and the pizza was Jersey-style and abundant.  The streets of the novels, from Nottingham to Olden, were already familiar to me when I arrived.

I don’t live in that part of New Jersey anymore, but I love the books as much as ever.  Top Secret 21 was an entertaining read in a month that always feels exhausting.  It was a reminder of the things I find charming about my little corner of New Jersey and a welcome respite from the busy back-to-school season.

Dogwood Thursday: September 28

Last weekend featured two days of lovely weather, with sunlight and breezes and temperatures that never went past the low 70s.  It felt like Fall had finally arrived.  This week has featured more of the breezy Fall days with temperatures cool enough in the morning to warrant a sweater and afternoons gently kissed by sun warmth.  We are headed into a rainy patch of days that will be cool and damp.  Fall has taken hold.

The dogwood tree is soaking in the Fall days, slowly moving toward turning all of its leaves to a golden red color.  I always find transitional seasons lovely, filled with beauty and anticipation about the season to come.  

On Salad

JT isn’t the world pickiest eater, but for years he’s certainly been in the running for the title.  Mostly, I lived with his pickiness because my gentle attempts to get him to try something new were always met with gagging horror followed by accusatory looks.  He can still recount a time when he was three years old and I tried to get him to eat broccoli.  He tells this tale to anyone who will listen and delivers the “she made me eat broccoli” punchline in the same tone as one would say “and then I was made to eat the live mouse.”

There were occasional deviations from his world of bread, turkey and ham sandwiches, pizza, spaghetti, and chicken fingers.  He has always loved tacos and eats avocado by the bucket full.  But mostly he did not experiment. 

Several years ago, our school got a new lunch facility (called the Dining Commons because prep schools give everything a fancy name) and lunch was now included with tuition.  This freed me from lunch-packing drudgery.  I figured that JT would just eat a turkey sandwich every day and that would be the end of it.  Instead, he tentatively began to explore new foods.

I’m not saying that he greeted Indian food day with a cheer.  I am saying he began to try chicken parm and lasagna, even the occasional bowl of chicken noodle soup.  He branched out ever so slightly.  Then his cross country coach began to make nutrition suggestions and disciple of hers that he is, a whole new variety of foods entered his world.

For starters, he gave up soda entirely and now travels everywhere with a water bottle the size of an infant.

He discovered he liked tomatoes.  From that came a try at salad, especially if home-grown tomatoes are in the bowl.  From salad came cole slaw, which he thinks is just a different kind of salad.  I suspect he understands cabbage is not lettuce, so this is an actual experimentation achievement.

Greek and Icelandic yogurt (less sweet; more protein) began to be consumed.  

Fruit outside the trifecta of banana, apple, and orange entered his world.  Strawberries, blueberries, mangoes, blackberries, raspberries, kiwi…….he will give most fruits at least a tentative try.

He tried refried beans, liked them, and then tried garbanzo beans in a salad.  Sold.

Peanut butter and nuts were welcomed…..walnuts, pecans, and a handful of almonds as a snack on race days.

Most suppers at my house involved a salad for one.  Now the boy joins in, embracing new flavors and even, on occasion, a little carrot with his tomato and lettuce.  

I feel like I am ever closer to being able to send him out in the world as a human with vaguely normal eating habits.  Parenting victory!

12 Months of Miss Read: September

The backstory: At the start of 2016, I pulled out my very favorite Miss Read book, Village Centenary.  The novel is structured in months and each chapter explores a month in the year of a village school that is celebrating its 100^th anniversary.  This year, my own school is celebrating its 250^th anniversary and as we think of our past and look to our future, I thought that Miss Read would make a lovely companion for me.  For each month of 2016, I plan to read Miss Read’s reflection on the month.

Miss Read is a pseudonym for Dora Jessie Saint, an English author who wrote between 1955 and 1996.  Her novels were tales of every day life in small English towns.  Village Centenary is set in Fairacre, an imaginary Cotswold community.  As is the case in nearly all of the Fairacre novels, the novel is written in the first person and it is through our narrator, school teacher Miss Read, that the story unfolds.

September with Miss Read

Miss Read and her students returned to school in September.  My students also came back and together, Miss Read and I made the adjustment to the busier days of school.

We started our school year with a musical concert to celebrate our school’s 250th anniversary.  Miss Read is planning a celebration for her own school’s 100th anniversary and September found her reviewing the historical costumes her students will wear as they re-enact scenes from Fairacre School’s history.  The author behind the Miss Read series, was a school teacher herself before she took up writing and she clearly never lost her sense of the life of a teacher.  Miss Read gets to the end of September a little tired but settling in to the pattern of her school days.  She always takes pleasure in her work, even when there are challenges on the horizon.  Miss Read and I have that in common, which probably explains why I always come back to these stories.

Pretty Packages

I had need to send some packages out West earlier this month and as usual, ribbon was involved.

Middle School Thoughts: Time Management

For the first two years that I worked in the Middle School, we were grades 5 through 8.  The 5th graders were held in a sort of protective custody which gave them an opportunity to observe the freedom that older children enjoyed, while still functioning in a cocoon.  The next year, as 6th graders, they were mostly ready for the responsibility of lockers and coming to class with the right materials, having learned the ropes through observation.  The system functioned fairly well, though even with limited freedom, 5th graders are prone to poor decision-making, the sort that always seemed surprising in kids not yet in the throes of adolescence.

Last year, 5th grade returned to the Lower School and we became a more traditional three-grade Middle School.  6th graders joined athletic teams to make them 6th, 7th, and 8th and our music classes also featured all three grades.  Last year’s 6th graders had been in the Middle School for a year and the transition was fairly seamless.  This year, with 6th graders who are new to us, has been an interesting reminder about the developmental changes of tweens.

The good news is that 6th graders are eager to embrace the independence that we offer.  That eager excitement helps to blunt their anxiety.  We have a gentle transition at the start of the year, where we remind them of expectations and also offer ready assistance.  As we move into the third week of school, most of the 6th students have eased into the expectations, though there are moments when they hope to retreat to childhood.  There is still plenty of support, but now it comes with a more direct reminder of our expectations.

This week, my 6th grade group had 10 minutes to sum up answers to questions about the failure of the Roman Empire.  We’ve been working with this material since school began and they were ready to answer two questions in 10 minutes.  Most of the students got after it but a few answered the first question and then stalled.  My reminder to get to it was met with sweet smiles and more stalling; one student told me, “I’m thinking.”  I smiled and said, “think faster” but I could tell he wasn’t persuaded.  A few minutes later, class ended and I collected the answers.  The two boys with half-empty pages panicked a bit, each telling me that they would take it home to finish.  When I said no and took the papers, they were stunned.

I smiled and said we’ll keep practicing to use our time wisely.  But both boys left the room rather sobered.  The next day, I handed back the answers with comments but no grades —— this was a practice reminder about using our time wisely.   The guilty boys were relieved.  I expect a lesson has been learned.  And I have been reminded about the need for a careful transition into the world of more independent learning.

Dogwood Thursday: September 22

Today, Fall officially takes charge of the seasons and with its arrival I’ll be posting weekly pictures of my backyard dogwood tree.  The leaves are already beginning to turn.

After a wet August, most of September has been dry and hot.  September usually brings us more rain and the unseasonable dryness likely means we’ll have a less vibrant display of fall leaves.  That’s rather a shame as fall around here is often splendid.  

I’ll enjoy the beauty that does emerge and remind myself that each season has its value, imperfect or not.  That's rather like life itself and it's a lesson that bears repeating for me.

Last of Summer's Bounty

Fall officially begins tomorrow, but so far the week’s weather has felt very much like Indian summer, with warm days and cool nights.  This time of year always feels fleeting and while it lasts I am enjoying the flowers I can still pick from my garden.  

They make the dining room cheerful when breakfast is eaten at sunrise and when supper is served in the twilight.  They are a reminder to enjoy the season’s bounty while it lasts.

Back to School Supper

It is a tradition around here that on the weekend before we return to school, I make a fried chicken supper.  The older JT gets (and the closer he is to leaving home for college), the more these small traditions mean to me.  And Sunday chicken supper is an especially happy one.

This supper had all our favorites, including corn muffins with honey butter, grits casserole, and cole slaw.  There were garden flowers on the table, as befits a late summer supper.

The grandmother who taught me to make these foods is always close in my mind when I set out to soak chicken in buttermilk and fry it up.  I always admired the way she could cook by memory. Now I am the one cooking by memory and I do it to equip my son with memories and traditions that I hope will last a lifetime.  That’s happy!

Bulletin Board

I’ve always had a bulletin board display in my classroom and when I moved to the Middle School, the bulletin board came to my office.  Each August, I remove the items from the previous school year and then reconstruct the board for the coming school year.

Many items change, though there are a few themes that are consistent.  I always have a few pictures from my summer adventures.  This year, that’s JT and T in Kansas City at Kaufman Stadium.  I’ve got JT, his grandmother,  and his cousin C in Kings Canyon among the Sequoia trees.  An updated picture of my tall nephews and JT are there, as they are every year.  There is always a little baseball; this year that’s the Kaufman Stadium photo as well as the Kansas City Monarchs jersey and the postcard of Buck O’Neil, both obtained at the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame in Kansas City.  I added in a picture of JT in the St. Louis Cardinals bull pen.  I’ve got a St. Louis Cardinals logo as well.  

There are stickers and things that amuse me; reminders of the spirit I hope to bring to my work.   There are photos I made and like; this year’s pumpkins will be swapped out for other seasonal photos as the year progresses.

I also pick a few items of historical significance.  There is something presidential; this year’s honors went to George Washington on an antique postcard and a card with pictures and quotes from Washington, Lincoln, and FDR.   There are a number of campaign buttons from my collection; Hillary Clinton buttons are on their way.  I don’t have a T-rump button and I won’t be buying one.   I also include an item that reminds me of the focus of one of my American history class; this year that’s Harriet Scott, the wife of Dred Scott, the man whose 1857 court case shook the nation into understanding just what it would take to end slavery.  Buck O’Neil, alive a generation later, and playing baseball in a segregationist nation, is yet another reminder of what I will teach this year.

There are always flowers —— this year it’s a lovely zinnia seed pack (these were planted in my backyard garden) as well as the antique postcard of a flower market in San Francisco.

The bulletin board is meant to be brain candy, fodder for my memories and imagination.  It’s made up of items and mementos that make me smile and make me think.  It’s hopeful and happy and its creation is one of my favorite traditions for the start of the school year.