Summer Into Fall 2021

 Blame it on Covid Fatigue. 

My ability to concentrate as well as the speed and rate of completion of my reading seems to have taken a turn for the worse. I have always enjoyed historical fiction, but these four books were all disappointing to varying degrees and in different ways.

First of all, I never even began this highly anticipated depiction of the lives of Puritan women in early America because Elaine said it was boring. After looking over the reviews on Amazon for Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit, I may give it another chance!

Next, I managed to get through the very short, 58 pages of Resist: A Story of D-Day by Alan Gratz mostly because I wanted to clear it for distribution to my fifth graders. (After receiving many bonus copies from Scholastic books.) Sadly, none of my students seemed enthused about the book, other than noticing one of the chapters titled “Pee Break.” Sigh! The author has written several other books about World War II including his most popular, Allies. Even though I don’t teach this time period, I thought it would appeal to more of my kids.

I was so looking forward to reading Monticello by Sally Cabot Gunning because I loved her trilogy of books set during the American Revolution and I wanted to learn more about Thomas Jefferson, who I admire. This book was such a big dud for me that I think I skimmed my way through the last third of it, nodding off to sleep every time I attempted to be done with it. In my humble opinion, Gunning should stick to telling stories about fictional characters during historical time periods.

Last, but by no means least disappointing, was The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah. This wretched account of a woman’s hardships during the Dust Bowl in 1930’s America was tedious, formulaic, and repetitive. Again, I cheated and downloaded the audiobook to listen to (some) of the last chapters because I didn’t have the endurance to stumble through the last exhausting bits of the story. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever attempt to read Hannah’s longer and more celebrated World War II story The Nightingale.

           

Dishonorable mentions go to: The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson that I will someday (maybe) finish reading. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern that I couldn’t get into even though I loved her book The Night Circus. 

Downloaded and never opened: The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian, The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews, Writers and Lovers by Lily King, Circe by Madeline Miller, Normal People by Sally Rooney (I watched the first few episodes on Hulu instead), and Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (The audiobook did not hold my attention even during a walk in the neighborhood).

And, drumroll …. Nonfiction: The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendo, and White Fragility by Robin Deangelo.

Finally, at some point before the end of the school year, Elaine and I need to read and discuss Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum for our educator evaluation goal.