Thursday Thoughts

Hello!

Last month, when I shared the books I read, one of them was The Paris Library. While reading it, there was a quote that stuck out to me and got me thinking…

“We all have books that changed us forever…one that let us know that we’re not alone. What’s yours?”

Recently, WordPress also had a suggested writing prompt: Three books that have had an impact on you.

So, I’m combining those idea’s for today’s Thursday Thoughts post.

Honestly, there are many books that have impacted me or changed the way I think about things or view others.

The list is probably longer than this, but ones that immediately came to mind were:

• Long Way Home
• Where the Crawdads Sing
• A Woman is No Man
• Little Fires Everywhere
• American Dirt
• A Quiet Life
• The Things We Cannot Say
• This Tender Land
• The Rent Collector
• The Four Winds
• The Girls in the Stilt House
• The Giver of Stars
• We Were the Lucky Ones
• A Hope More Powerful than the Sea
• The Paris Library

Three books that had an impact on me…

• Tuesday with Morrie– My dad gave me this book right as I entered college. I remember reading it in only a few days. Then, through the years, I’d occasionally read some parts (or all) of it again. I even used it during student teaching and my first few years of teaching. I’d read a chapter aloud, and students would write their thoughts. I guess, with this book, it was the first time I realized why someone would read a book or parts of a book over and over/when needed.

• To Kill a Mockingbird – Believe it or not, I never read this book in high school. It’s such a classic 9th grade text, but I hadn’t read it until I was about to teach this unit during my first year teaching. From the first page, I loved it. I taught it for many years, and loved it so much that I wanted to use the name Harper if we had a girl…obviously, Travis didn’t feel the same way. We even named one of our dogs Scout. The students I’ve helped with English 1 the past few years have been reading the graphic novel version of the text, and it’s actually really good. This shorter version holds their attention better, the pictures are great, and the main points of the plot are still there. Anyway, I guess this text felt like a “rite of passage” as a teacher. It will always be the first book I remember teaching.

Scout (left) Shiloh (right)

• The Dinner List – I read this book in 2018, and I remember sharing that I read it and loved it in my Instagram stories. Quite a few friends had asked what books I’d been reading, and I shared that one as one of my favorites in 2018. In 2019, when I started my blog, I was excited to start sharing more of what I’d been reading. In a way, I guess having a few people tell me I should share what I read helped push me to finally start my blog.

So, these three books were pivotal or meaningful to me in some way.

What about you? What is a book that’s impacted your life?

See you back here tomorrow…I’m excited to finally share the details of our trip to Julep Farm last week.