I don’t remember the first poem I ever read, but I have vivid memories of the first poems I heard. My mother read from the Little Golden Book of Poetry. The images hidden in the words took me to far-off lands, and the rhymes filled my young head with music. [...]
Three bodies wiggled in close. “One more, please, mommy, read one more!” The educator in me delighted in the interest my children took in the picture books we read every night—some every night. They each had a favorite. Tired from a long day, I enjoyed these quiet moments, but [...]
I've wondered, "What can one person do to change a troubled world?” I found a few ideas from Brad Aronson in his book, HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act at a Time. Brad describes the small acts that helped him and his wife, Mia when she faced a [...]
The very thought of doing nothing runs counter to everything my dad taught me. His favorite admonition when we looked too idle always began with, “Are just going to sit around when there is work to be done?” Maybe that’s why Jenny O’Dell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention [...]
A young woman sat on a stump wearing khaki pants and a shirt, gazing into the eyes of a wild chimp. I wondered how someone could find that life-fulfilling. When I was her age, my teenage self found nothing intriguing about tromping through the forests of Nigeria with all [...]
Some books leave us free and some books make us free. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson If you are a lover of book lists and share my obsession with collecting these lists, here’s one more to add to your collection. Last year I tried something new. In addition to selecting one [...]
I can’t help myself. If the headline tells me I have a chance to add more books to my reading list, I will fall in every time. Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. —Henry David Thoreau (A Week [...]
