Neither a Mover nor a Shaker

Warning: This is going to sound like a pouting/pity party but it isn't. It is the stuff on my heart at the moment, and that is what this space has always been for.  

This time of year can be rough.  It can be amazing with graduations and celebrations and pools and parties, but it can also be rough.  In May of this year (though for years it was always March. May is a new timeline.) Library Journal (LJ)  releases a host of awards.  It honors libraries, administrators, and librarians. Things like Librarian of the Year, Library of the Year, Para of the Year.  

There is an award category called the Movers and Shakers.  These always celebrate some of the most amazing people in the library community. "Innovators", "emerging leaders", and those who are "providing inspiration and model programs for others."

There are categories like Change Agents, Digital Developers, Educators, Innovators, Advocates, and Community Builders.

These are legitimately amazing people.  They are giants on social media and people who are making a huge impact in their community, region, or even nation.  I celebrate them and their work. It is always inspirational to read through the list and all they have accomplished. 

And it is humbling  

And sometimes it really stings.  

There is absolutely zero chance I will ever be on LJ's Movers and Shakers list.  

It is never going to happen.  
That awareness hurts.

It isn't supposed to.  I know that LJ is celebrating them and bringing attention to their powerful work.  But the knowledge that my work is just not even in the same league can make it seem.....less. 

Then a few weeks later, graduation happens, and seniors recognize those who had an impact on their life, their academic career, their education.  When I was in the classroom, I got the occasional shout out. 

Now?  I can't even imagine that I am even for a moment considered.  

Which kind of stings.  

And it shouldn't.  

I am not in a position like a classroom teacher. My work is almost entirely behind the scenes.  

I read in classrooms K-5, but once middle school hits, students rarely know about the things my work involves.  

I know my work is important to the running of a school.  

I help teachers know how to use tech. 
I help the tech work. 
I make sure the library is filled with a current, diverse collection that meets the needs of the students.
I hunt for resources for teachers and administrators. 
I advocate for students.
I ensure that student voice and choice are honored in the library collection. 

The library in my 6-12 campus is, essentially, an entirely different library from the one that was there when I took over 5 years ago.  That space has comfortable seating. I have implemented positive circulation policies including getting rid of fines and increasing check-out limits.  The collection is far far more representative of current student reading habits. The change in the collection is almost impossible to describe.  

Any student who checks out a book that has been purchased in the past 5 years has benefitted from the small, slow, progressive changes.  

The seniors who graduated this year have no idea what was there before. 

And I love that. 

I love that they will never be burdened by a library that was not student-centered.  I am happy that their high school memories involve a library that was welcoming, responsive, and friendly. 

But that isn't Mover.
It certainly isn't Shaker. 

But it is important.  And I know that.  I am definitely not criticizing the Movers and Shakers award.  Not even a little.  

I suppose this is a lament for a world where all of those small, necessary, daily tasks of educators --not just librarians--are not really seen.

That is just part of the education gig, though.  Planting a seed that you desperately hope will be a tree at some point in your lifetime.  

This is much more of a long game.'

Not Mover and Shaker.  
Planter, nurturer, waiter, tender, trimer, pruner, waterer, feeder, comforter. 
And hoper. (One who hopes?)

So today I will enjoy some Cherry Garcia and grumble about not being a Mover and Shaker, then tomorrow I'll get back to the work that helps my students. 

Achtung Baby?

I can see it in my mind's eye as if it happened earlier today. 

I am 17, sitting on the floor of my room.  I am holding a prized item: the cassette tape I just received from Columbia House.  

It is U2's new release, Achtung Baby.  


I had listened to The Joshua Tree until the thing darned near fell apart.  Over the summer, I had paid a $75 deposit (borrowed from my aunt) to rent from the record store a VHS tape (I know) of the live performance of Rattle and Hum, the album that followed The Joshua Tree. 

Achtung Baby was the first album U2 had released in three years.  This was the late 80s and early 90s. Waiting three years for an album felt like an eternity.  

And now I owned Achtung Baby. 

I gingerly unwrapped the plastic, and my heart skipped a beat when I noticed the liner notes contained complete lyrics listings.  

I put the cassette into the player, closed my eyes, and pressed play.  After a second or so of silence, there was a garbled screech of distortion.  I jumped, pressed stop, and opened the cassette door with dread, imagining the spaghetti of tape I would have to wind back in with a pencil.  But no.  Nothing was wrong. The tape was not being eaten.  I took it out, looked at it, flipped it over, looked carefully again, then gingerly put it back in.  I pressed play but left my finger hovering over the stop button. 

There is was again: the jarring screeches. I stopped it again, certain my cassette was mangled. Again, it was nothing.  A third time, I put it in and let it play.  Soon, the fullness of "Zoo Station", the first track on the A-side came through.   

And I listened.  

This was no Joshua Tree.  
This wasn't even Rattle and Hum.  

This was something entirely different. 

The sound. 
The instruments. 
The cacophony. 
The style.

The lyrics don't even start until a minute into the song.  

Bono's voice was muffled 

"I'm ready for the laughing gas
I'm ready
I'm ready for what's next
I'm ready to duck
I'm ready to dive
I'm ready to say
I'm glad to be alive"

This was definitely no Joshua Tree. 

And I kept listening. The entire album was so different. 

"Zoo Station" was weird and broken and jarring. 
"Mysterious Ways" was energetic and wild, filled with enthusiasm. 
I cried when I listened to "One."
"Love is Blindness" was so beautiful, I thought my heart might crack open. 

This album was wonderful. 

I have said many times that I think The Joshua Tree, for me, is one of the most nearly perfect albums. I can listen to the entire thing, skipping no songs, then do it again.  I can't say that about many albums. 

Achtung Baby comes pretty close.  

But they are so different.  

At that time (and toady), I loved Rod Stewart. (The use of "love" here is no exaggeration).  But I came to him mostly in retrospect.  I was born in 1974, three years after the release of Every Picture Tells a Story. By the time Out of Order was released in 1988, Stewart's disco phase that had caused such outright anger his fans had already passed. 

The same with Bob Dylan.  I was a loyal Dylan fan. I wrote my senior honors English portfolio entirely on Dylan, so I knew about the absolute horror of his fans when Dylan went electric.  But I only knew that in hindsight; I didn't live through any of the transitions. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan came out 11 years before I was born; Blonde on Blonde the final album of his electric controversy was released in 1966. I was three months old when the groundbreaking Blood on the Tracks was released. 

After their genre-jarring changes, I knew that both Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan would continue to have prolific careers.  This was the early 90's.  Rod Stweart was something of an MTV darling. Just 2 years later he would release Unplugged...and Seated and sell 3 million copies, the third-best MTV Unplugged live album behind Nirvana and Eric Clapton.  

Bob Dylan had been churning out albums for almost 40 years, and Oh, Mercy had gone platinum two years earlier.  These beloved fixtures in my life would be fine. 

But U2?  

What in the world were they thinking?  
This album, this sound was so new. So different. 
Would they survive? 
Would everything be OK? 

(Spoiler alert: Of course, it would be OK.  
U2 has sold 18 million copies of Achtung Baby.)

But in my living room heart racing after fearing my cassette had been eaten only to discover that this album was nothing at all like the ones I had known and loved so much?  It was very very hard to see that bright future.   

Full disclosure: I have never liked change. Ever.  

That doesn't mean I don't like new things. I am almost always an early adopter of technology.  And I like knowing about trends. I love learning new things.

But I do not like change. Especially abrupt change.  
It makes me uncomfortable because I am deeply distressed by the unknown. Like I said, I like knowing things. 

Today, while cooking dinner and cleaning up, the normal landmarks of life-in-quarantine, in the background, I was streaming The Joshua Tree followed immediately by Achtung Baby.  But as I heard those opening seconds of the second album, I stood there startled. 

I was rattled. 

I realized how I felt: 

The past two months have felt like every single day, the soundtrack is the first 45 seconds of "Zoo Station" on a loop. Not the rest. Just the first 45 seconds.

Jumbled. 
Jarring.
Discordant.
Uncomfortable. 
Wrong somehow. 
Broken. 

But in my kitchen, the music continued.  

Soon Bono's muffled voice came through and sang about "being ready for what's next".  

Then "Zoo Station" ended, and "Even Better than the Real Thing" came on, upbeat, zigzagging, and enthusiastic.  

Then "One" started up. 

Bono's voice, now clear,

"Is it getting better

Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say one love, one life 
It's one need in the night
One love, get to share it

Leaves you darling, if you don't care for it...
Well it's too late, tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other

Carry each other"

But that comfort is immediately followed by "Until the End of the world," a song now for me synonymous with grief.  

In 1992, U2 performed a live version of it at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert.  Freddie Mercury, the frontman for Queen, had died just a few months earlier at the end of 1991, and the whole world was a mess. Mercury had died of pneumonia that was complicated by AIDS.  
So many people were sick.  
So many people were dying.  

I grew up in east-central Indiana, just an hour away from Ryan White, the boy who had contracted AIDS via blood transfusion and been treated horrifically by his school and community. Students, parents, and teachers had signed petitions to keep him out of school.  He was no danger to anyone. When he was allowed to return to school, kids stayed home. He was a paperboy, and people on his route canceled their subscriptions.  

He was only 14. I was 11.  

The treatment of Ryan White brought nationwide attention to the worst of people, how people behave when they are scared and uninformed. 

It highlighted that grown adults, powered by misinformation and fear, would willingly terrorize an innocent kid.  

That experience had been very very real to me. 

As someone who, even as a middle school student, followed the news, I knew about AIDS and the horrors it brought. I also knew there was no vaccine.  

But I had seen Princess Diana walk into AIDS wards, pick up babies, and cradle them in her gentle embrace.     

The science was there. HIV was a bloodborne pathogen.  There were ways to protect yourself.  Ryan White was no danger to anyone. 

But people were terrified and they terrorized him. 

Ryan White died in 1990.  He was only 18 at the time, but I was only 16.  That was too close.  To real.  

Then, just a year later, Freddie Mercury died.  

Ryan White was a kid.  Freddie Mercury was a god.  How could this happen?  Freddie Mercury was not supposed to die. 

The grief was just too much. 

Then there was the tribute concert.  The remaining members of Queen. Metallica. Def Leppard. Bob Geldof (sans Pink Floyd) Guns N' Roses. Elizabeth Taylor came out and spoke.  

The concert was broadcast live and I watched the entire thing.  

The only part I truly remember is U2.  

Bono stepped out and they performed "Until the End of the World" from Achtung Baby. 

"Haven't seen you in quite a while
I was down the hold just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world
...
In my dream, I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You, you said you'd wait
'Til the end of the world"

This was 1992. Or was it yesterday?

Sometimes it is hard to tell. 

I am protected in my home.  My kids are (mostly) doing remote learning. My husband and I both continue to work and get paid. Our home is safe. We have access to health care. And electricity. And wifi.  

But turn on the TV, and the world is a bit of a mess.  
The economic toll. 
The suffering. 
The terror.
The terrorizing. 

This Is the first 45 seconds of "Zoo Station" on a loop. 

But then I see reports that Taiwan has had no community transmission in a month. 
New Zealand is moving to phase 2. 
And those bring some much-needed hope.

Schools and education leaders are talking about how to reopen in the fall, and it is a scary jumbled mess.
How do we keep kids safe? 
How do we keep staff safe?
How do we educate in this ecosystem of activity and trauma and hope and expectation?

I don't know. 
I am not sure anyone knows. 
I want very much to believe that people are trying to figure it out. 
I really want to believe that those people in charge of "the plan" are consulting experts and listening to science.  

That is my hope, but I don't know for certain. 

So, for right now, I am stuck in those first 45 seconds of "Zoo Station."  But I really have hope that at some point, things will progress. We will go outside again. We will meet with people again. 

I have no idea when, but at some point, I will walk into a classroom full of children and, I hope, not feel fear. 

I am not afraid of them. I am afraid for them. 

I have to believe that at some point, we can step back into the rest of our lives.  

The album will keep playing. 

Which is good news.  
Achtung Baby is an album full of fear, uncertainty, and grief. 

But it is also beautiful. 

And it was new. 

It tried original sounds and evolving ideas and delicious combinations of instruments and vocals, talents of so many people brought together to try something different. 

So, I guess I need to let the album keep playing. 

Because eventually, "Zoo Station" ends, and in a little bit, you get to "One".

"We're one, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other"

I think that is pretty much the only way we move forward.  

So I don't Forget

Yesterday, we all were a bit stressed.  So as a family we watched a couple of episodes of Lost (the show we are watching as a family right now).  

Afterward, when it was time to go to sleep, both of the kids (16 and 13) climbed into bed with me for about half an hour and we watched funny and sweet pet videos.  Dogs doing adorable things. Hedgehogs running agility courses.  Cats sitting in the piano while their human played.  We laughed. We "awwwwww"ed. We just sat there and felt a sweet peace. 

I know quarantining is a privilege. 
I also know this is stressful.

However.

Lest I lose sight of it, this time is a gift. 

Anne Frank's Mom's Diary

I hesitate to write this because I do not in any way want to be disrespectful, so if I seem to choose my words carefully, that is why. 

A friend of mine was talking about how she is struggling during this time. She is a mom and a wife and a teacher. Her struggles were very similar to those I have heard many times. I worry a lot about my students. A lot.  But do you know who else I worry about?  The teachers. 

The pressure is so much.
It is so hard to parent and teach at the same time. 

Teaching online is hard. Really hard. I have taken classes either entirely or partially online both synchronously and asynchronously for the better part of 8 years.  There is a steep learning curve because of the nature of the online ecosystem.  It isn't just putting all your stuff in Google Drive.  Online learning is tough. Online teaching is also tough.

The emails.  Holy cats, the emails!  They. Never. Stop.

And then there is the constant barrage of advice from people about how your house should be spotless since you are home all day and Gwenyth Paltrow thinks this is the perfect time to learn a language and Shakespeare wrote King Leer during quarantine and Isaac Newton realized the principles of calculus in quarantine and Anne Frank was in the attic for 25 months AND YOU HAVE WIFI, WHY ARE YOU STRESSED, YOU UNGRATEFUL GIT?! 

When I hear this, while I am glad for Anne's diary and that she found beauty and joy in the horror of that experience, I often wonder about what her mom's diary would have said. 

Anne had the ability to experience some level of joy in the midst of unimaginable horror at least in part because the adults in her life took on the brunt of that horror. We don't talk about that because it feels ungrateful or disrespectful to Anne Frank's memory, but it is the case. 

My children will have very different memories of this time from those that I have. That is the case for every family.  

And I recognize that I write this from a place of privilege, where my children don't have the added trauma of food insecurity or homelessness or the myriad layers of stress and trauma that permeate the lives of many families in America. 

But I do everything imaginable to help them both protected and informed. I watch the White House press briefings every day as well as J.B. Pritzker's Illinois briefings.  My children are welcome to watch them with me.  Knowledge is power.  Information is power. 

And yesterday I turned off the press briefing when I recognized it was more than I could handle.  My cup was empty. I told them that was why I was turning it off, trying to model both information seeking and also recognizing our own limits. 

I work every day to be an educator, a parent, a spouse, a student, and a citizen in the best, most responsible way I can.  And that is exhausting. 

I know that others are more exhausted than me, and I would not even think to compare my exhaustion or stress to that of a health care worker. That isn't the point; this is not the suffering Olympics. 

Teachers, as a group, want to help. They want to teach, and shepherd, and lead, and help.  They will spend their own money, time, energy, life to make that happen.  And right now, the pressure is on. 

Anne Frank's mom tugs at my heart.  On the Anne Frank House's website, they say this: 

"Reading the diary of Anne Frank, we get to know her mother Edith Frank only superficially....In the hiding place, Edith and her daughter Anne often clashed. In her diary, Anne did not spare Edith. At the same time, Anne realised that their quarrels were exacerbated by their difficult circumstances.... According to Otto [Edith's husband], Edith suffered more from their arguments than Anne did....Edith had a hard time in the Secret Annex. According to Miep Gies, one of the helpers, she suffered from feelings of despair. ‘Although the others were counting the days until the Allies came, making games of what they would do when it was all over, Mrs. Frank confessed that she was deeply ashamed of the fact that she felt the end would never come.’"

My heart grieves for Edith Frank. For the load she had to bear. For the loss of her relationship with Anne. 

And I see in it a warning.

We need to be compassionate not only with our struggling children but with our teachers, our administrators, our support staff, and ourselves. 

We aren't waiting for the Allies to show up, but we are hoping the scientists can identify treatments, effective rapid tests,  cures, and vaccines.  That uncertain timeline is stressful. And it is easy to get lost in that despair, thinking that things will never return to normal.  

This is especially true for those who are inclined to be helpers: educators (all of them: paras, admin, bus drivers, all of them), health care workers, those in service fields. 

It is also true of parents.   

It would be hard to imagine someone blaming Edith Frank.  Anyone looking back can see the monumental task she had before her, managing a family in the secret annex for two years of hiding.  And what was at stake was their very lives.  How could anyone possibly blame her for being depressed and stressed and anxious?  How, too, can anyone not see that Edith suffered so that, to some extent, Anne's suffering was lessened?

I wonder if, in the current crisis--which pales in comparison to the Holocaust--we can learn from Edith and Anne?

I wonder if we can all cut each other some slack in an effort to survive this crisis with our psyches intact as well as our lives? 

I wonder if administrators can be compassionate with their staff and students, knowing that at the end of this, education will continue, and it will be far more successful if we don't drive ourselves to destruction during this time? 

I wonder if parents can see that, yes, kids need to learn, but they also need to feel safe, something that is hard when there is trouble all around? 

And I really wonder if we can see that we need to be compassionate and understanding and forgiving of ourselves? What good is it to come out on the other end of this crisis without or dignity and sense of self? 

That doesn't mean I am not going to try to accomplish things.  I am up to date on the laundry for the first time in pretty much ever.  I am reading the things I need for class. I am also spending time with my family and taking time to rest. 

Just don't expect me to learn a language or expand on our understanding of calculus. That isn't my goal.  I am going to honor Edith Frank. I am going to show myself, my family, and my colleagues some compassion. 

Thoughts in the Time of Quarantine

I have a lot of thoughts on education in quarantine.  My typical outlet thus far has been yammering on Facebook, saving articles, and talking to my captive audience (Husband and two kids.  Believe me, they are very excited about my thought-sharing). 

For the sake of posterity, primary sources, and whatnot, I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts here.  They may not be terribly thorough, but at least they will be somewhere other than my brain. 

First, I am a smart, educated, tech-savvy person. I (now) have access to high-speed internet; we have a dozen devices to access the internet in my home.  I have a laser printer sitting on my desk. I have a 32-inch wall-mounted TV that serves as a second monitor.  I am an early adopter of most tech.  Prior to all of this, I have used Google Classroom, Google Meet, Zoom, and Blackboard Collaborate. I am very comfortable taking classes in a digital format.

And I am feeling overwhelmed.  

I can only imagine people who have slow internet. Or a dodgy connection. Or tech that is insufficient. Or those who don't use the internet for anything other than Netflix. 

I can't imagine doing this as a parent who has to work outside the home and also care for kids at home. 

I can't imagine being the kid who has to figure all this out without a helpful parent. Or a knowledgeable parent. Or a parent. 

And my kids are stressed.  They have two educators in the home, access to tech, access to the internet. Yesterday, my youngest accidentally did an online form incorrectly and had a total meltdown. The stress is a lot. 

I fear that we are missing that in all of this. I don't mean "we" as my district but\ all of us.  How are we meeting the needs of our kids who are struggling? Or those who are unsafe at home? Or lonely? Or without support. 

I value education as one of the most important aspects of life. I have always told my children and students that education is something you achieve and nobody can ever take from you. I think it is a solid key to getting out of difficult situations (though I recognize that this is imperfect because of institutional racism and cyclical poverty). 

But I wonder if we are focussing too much on education and not enough on the hearts and souls of our kids.  And our teachers. And our admins.  

Are we focusing on classwork and computers and lessons and meetings because that is something we can control?  Perhaps. 

I am a big picture person.  I see ten miles down the road and often trip over what is in front of me.  So, for me, a lot of this is thinking long term and being overwhelmed but the nuance of now.  

Text Lineages

Earlier this week, I was reading some fascinating research.  The article was by Dr. Afred Tatum, and he was discussing the ways the educational system in the United States specifically fails to meet the needs of young black male students.  Within his research, he talked about such issues as students feeling that their teachers expect them to fail and the ways schools do a disservice by not selecting relevant texts.  

At the heart of Tatum's research is the concept of the Text Lineage, that is those things that we read that shape our lives.  He calls them "trajectory-altering", which is a term I love.  

Trajectory-altering texts.  

Tatums went through the writings of hundreds of famous Black writers and looked for references to books or writings that had been important to them. Then, he created a text lineage, charting those writings, like a family tree, showing how one text lead to another and another. 

He found that the same books kept showing up, though these were often ones the person had read independently, not as part of school work. 

Tatum's premise is that we should use these text lineages to help us provide meaningful texts for students to read.  Looking for those items that appeared in many of the text lineages of these great minds. These sequences, for many of the people he studied, were profound. 

Trajectory-altering. 

Which made me think of my own textual lineage.  

I tried to think of those books or texts that had, at pivotal moments of my life been present. Or the ones I recall being powerful or shaping.   

As is my tendency, most things I think through turn into a list or a diagram. Or both.  This began as a list, then was turned into a diagram. 

I have said before how powerful the Little House books

were for me.  A female protagonist. A female author.  We shared a name.  We were both middle children. We both had long brown hair.  I felt such a profound connection to those books that it is hard for me to even explain.  

(Full disclosure: When I went back as an adult to read them to my children and realized some of the deeply problematic racist elements, I was stunned. It was hard for me to even think about because my childhood fondness for the texts in no way included any of these racist depictions or comments, but then I realized, hindsight being 20/20 that I had likely, in my white-middle-class-privilege glossed over them, which is another day's discussion.) 

The Little House books meant that I was always able to see myself in books. I could always see myself as a potential writer and a reader.  It was foundational for me.

Thinking of those foundational texts, I was surprised by the ones that came to mind.  The first was a Spanish textbook, level 1.  

I know.  What an absurd thing to think of.  But I can remember spending hours just soaking it in. Looking at the pictures labeled in Spanish, examining the spelling, noticing every tilde. My naive little self somehow believed that if I could absorb everything in that book, I could learn Spanish.  I know that is bananas now.  But at the time, I really really felt it.  

Thinking of my textual lineage, I realized that even then, as a young child I believed that books held knowledge. There was something to learn from them. I could read a book and somehow know more than I did before.  Which I think is a powerful thing for a young mind to believe.  I was always deeply disappointed every time I didn't know Spanish, and I figured I just needed to absorb more.  

It is not a secret that I don't read much non-fiction. My

whole life is non-fiction, and all of my academic work is non-fiction, so my pleasure reading rarely includes it.  But when I do choose a non-fic book, it is almost always something I believe I can learn from.  Lab Girl is the most recent one I finished; I learned so many things I had never even considered, things about plants and the natural world, about the funding of research and government policy.  They were virtually all things I would never have encountered anywhere outside of that book. 

But I have always believed--or at least I can't recall a time

when I didn't believe--that I could learn things from books, even if they were fiction.  On my book list, The Kite Runner struck me as part of that line.  I learned so many things from The Kite Runner that I can clearly remember spending days in a fog, thinking wondering, speculating.  Yes, it was partially emotional--the book is powerful that way--but also intellectually.   It dealt with geography, politics, history, and culture some of which I knew about, much I did not.  I left The Kite Runner, in the truest sense, knowing more.  That sort of experience changes you. I think my appreciation for that idea goes back to the time I spent reading through that Spanish textbook. 

Two of the books I loved as a child--Barney Bipple's Magic

Dandelions and Curious George Goes to the Hospital--are fiction in the best possible way.  Barney Bipple is a kid who doesn't like being 6. His odd neighbor gives him some dandelion puffs as a reward for honesty (he returns a huge diamond he found on her lawn), and he is given three wishes.  Zany antics ensue.  

But more than that, there is just no possibility that the events in Barney Bipple could really happen.  But that didn't make them any less amazing.  

Similar to Curious George swallowing a puzzle piece and having to go to the hospital to have it removed (in my mind's eye, I can vividly see the drawing of the piece showing up on an X-ray), only to have it nicely fit in the puzzle at the end.  The wacky things that happen throughout are just not possible. Not in this world with its rules and restrictions.  

But both Barney and George gave me a taste for the fantastic.  

I spent many years putzing around in realistic fiction eventually finding my way into dystopian. (I LOVE a good YA dystopian.  The world is about to end, and we need a teenager to save us!)  

But a few years ago I stumbled into high fantasy (Patrick Rothfus, Garth Nix, and Brandon Sanderson), and I found where I belong. 

The magic.

The impossibility.

The world-building.  

And all of it so very impossible while also being so vividly real. Just like Barney in that courtroom full of cats and dandelions. 

The gap in my life between Barney Bipple and Mistborn is probably 40 years.  But that feeling, that beautiful impossibility swallowing you up, that is coming home to a feeling that books can bring. A feeling I hadn't known I had missed, until I stepped back into it, into that section of my textual lineage. 

For me, reading is, in large part, an interaction.  At times between myself and the author; at other times among an audience, the book, and myself, since I am often reading aloud to others.  When I was young, I remember loving reading aloud, mostly because I felt I was good at it.  I was that kid always raising her hand to volunteer to read.  

But the first text I can clearly remember reading aloud was

a play version (in a textbook) of Charlotte's Web.  My reading group had finished it on a Friday and was going to read it to the class on Monday.  So, like any overachieving nerd, I told my mother that I needed a spider costume or Monday. (You can imagine how thrilled she was.) But after a weekend of diligent work, I had a spider costume. It was sort of a black pillowcase with attached long socklike legs stuffed with pantyhose and wire hangers.  I was SO PROUD.  I put on my costume, climbed up on a chair (the web was in the corner of the barn, after all) and read my piece with all the love and emotion Charolette herself had. 

The entire thing lasted maybe 10 minutes.  Everyone was mostly surprised since, and I can't emphasize this enough, nobody else had a costume. Also, I wore the costume for the rest of the day.  

But I didn't care. I KNEW the audience loved the performance.  I had read something, and it had moved them. I saw firsthand the power of a text to affect someone else. 

I don't think I ever lost that feeling, of being able to affect other people with words.  Now, my words won't do that, but someone else's can. So, from third grade, fast forward to 5 years ago, I step into an elementary classroom, book in hand, and I get to read to students.  I get to be the oasis in a stressful day when they can set aside their work or worries or fears and listen to a book about overcoming or friendship or digging a hole or showing compassion or haunted underpants (that one was a big hit).  

Books can move people. 

Words can move people. 

I saw that when I gave a copy of Les Miserables to someone I knew would love it, only to have him tell me not long after that it was the best book he had ever read.  That is a great feeling. And one I first felt with Charlotte's Web. 

But it was the Berenstain's B Book that first made me feel like I was a capable reader.  It was the book that made me feel smart.  

Last semester, I did some research on reading self-concept and self-efficacy.  So much of the literature points to the idea that at a young age (about second grade), kids develop a sense of themselves as readers. 

I can read. 

I can't read. 

I am a good reader. 

I am not a good reader.  

And those feelings of self-efficacy--I can accomplish this task--are what lead them to try harder, persist longer, and succeed. Or not.  They don't have a connection to skill or IQ.  It is a feeling, based on successes and failures and experiences. And a positive feeling of self-efficacy leads kids to read more, thus becoming better readers. 

The B Book made me believe I was a good reader.  I read that book so many times that I memorized it.  I took great pride in my ability to recite the book.  I can still do it to this day.  

Was the book hard? No. 

Was it a classic? No. 

What was its Lexile level? No idea. 

I know I read that book and read it and read it until I knew it.  All of it.  

And it made me feel so capable.  And smart.  And really, deeply believe that I could read. 

To this day, I feel like I am a good reader.  

Now, I am a SLOW reader. Glacially slow.  But I believe I am a good reader.  And that residual feeling is carried over from 40 years ago when I conquered The B Book.  

So now, when I read something like A Tale of Two Cities (it is in my top five), a book I know is challenging, but one I always feel I am capable of understanding, reading deeply, truly appreciating, it is like a wave of satisfaction washing over me that started years ago with the B Book.  

Tatum's idea of Text Lineages has lingered in my mind since I learned of it.  

I am entirely certain that my text lineage, for example, is nothing like that of my children. Or my husband. 

Or my students. 

And that is part of the problem. 

I love A Tale of Two Cities deeply.  I could sit here right now and think of the final two chapters and start to cry.  

Most of my students would probably prefer to have their eyeballs ripped out rather than reading A Tale of Two Cities. 

The same goes for Les Miserables.

And a level 1 Spanish textbook from 50 years ago? 

Which makes me think about the texts we put in our children and students' lives.  

Yes, there are parts of the canon that everyone needs to know for cultural value.  But when we are talking about ways to get kids loving reading and having texts influence them, become trajectory-altering, what moves me is not the same as what moves them.  And what I had to deal with, persist through, or overcome is not the same as what they are dealing with. 

It seems that my text lineage is helpful for me to understand myself.  But it is also an interesting examination of why we need to diversify the texts we use.  

My text lineage is not enough. 

And, at the same time, it is my responsibility to help my students develop their own text lineage. This means they need those trajectory-altering texts, not just in class but in their independent pleasure reading time.  

Which means access.  Access to books and authors and ideas. And conversations about books that matter and ideas that are important.  

It is all so much. So much to do and get and be about. 

There really is no time to waste.