#OneWord2022

Here we go again...

A new year, a new word.

I have always tried to choose words that would make me a better version of myself, but in a realistic kind of way.  Like, what could I reasonably focus on, that would make my year better?  Looking back, most of the words have been more to improve my professional life as an educator, or my life as a parent.  Perhaps this year, I will just choose to do something that I love.

READ.

I have always been a reader.  I grew up across the street from the library.  Steven Kellogg and Judith Viorst were my picture books of choice.  As I got to 3rd grade, I used to spend my allowance money at Waldenbooks.  I started as a Babysitters Club fanatic, then moved onto Christopher Pike novels as a young teen.  My high school and college years were spent in mostly the required readings, but I did take an elective British lit class at U of I that I really enjoyed.  For awhile, it was Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, and the Shopaholic books that grabbed my attention.  Then, I became a teacher.  The first book I bought for my classroom was the new Ramona's World book, published just that year. I hung around in early chapter books for awhile, and then moved up to middle grade.  Harry Potter was my guy.  As a literacy coordinator, I started to read young adult as well.  I also started reading quite a bit of historical fiction, mostly around our units of study in 4th-8th grade.  Many of these books were read while I saw in a waiting room while my kids were at dance or swim class.  And that's where I stayed.  

Then, a pandemic hit.

While others might have used the pandemic to start reading, I stopped.  Like, almost completely.  There were a few novels read in Bazz's summer book clubs of 2019 and 2020 (with the best Zoom book club EVER with Colleen Hoover).  And Brezek had us read some social justice books in a book club, also via Zoom.  But, with a whole curriculum to revamp, I didn't have a lot of time to read.  And, with the time I did have to read, I spent hours on Twitter, reading articles about the pandemic and remote teaching and more about the pandemic. It's not like I was waiting for my kids at their sports classes anymore, either.  They were Zoom dancing in my front room.  Fiction became a thing of the past, unless I was reading it to record read alouds for our students.

I did buy a good amount of new novels, but they sat... Unread.

Then, one day last month, I was walking through Barnes and Noble to grab a coffee, and I saw it.  Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World.  There was a sequal?!?!  I read the first book, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, years ago in one night.  I stayed up until 3 am to finish it.  I just needed to see what happened between Ari and Dante.  It was one of the first coming of age novels I'd read, and it just opened up so many new understandings for me about culture, the LGBTQ community, family, and identity, and LOVE. I needed that sequal.  So, I picked it up, and it joined the pile of books that I have been buying but not reading.

One day during break, I decided that Ari and Dante deserved to be read.  So, I picked it up, and pretty much didn't put it down.  This book!  Reading it during our current pandemic, but knowing that Ari and Dante found their love during the AIDS pandemic, just had a profound impact on me.  The story of loss, the value of friendship, the relationships we have with family, the impact of teachers, the threads on racism and advocacy, it was all there for me to discover.  And, it immediately reminded me of WHY I read fiction.  The world I live in is seen with my eyes, but when I read fiction, I step into the perspectives of others.  And, I always learn something that helps me see the humans in my own world in a new and more empathetic way.  Ari reminded me that, sometimes, we invent who other people are in our minds, and that invention becomes our reality.  But, it isn't reality.  That's a lesson I needed to read as I step into 2022, during year 3 of the COVID pandemic.

Dante and Ari's love story also taught me that I need to remember and make space for my own love of books in 2022.  Works of fiction help me see the world as it was, and as it could be. They help me be a better human.  So, this year I will READ.  

(For you audio book lovers out there, Lin-Manuel Miranda narrates both books!  I might just need to listen to the first one all over again...)

And, I just so happen to have a friend who is leading the charge by organizing a teacher book club.  Thanks, Claudia Scott, for the motivation.

I think my first title in 2022 will be the book I started on summer vacation in the Smoky Mountains in 2021, This Tender Land.  I just need to find it...  I also bought Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone books for a little family book club.  And, there might have been a sale on hardcover books this week at Barnes and Noble.  

Let's READ!