Transitive Verve

Valentine's Day is coming, and if you happen to be unattached, you may be looking forward to spending some time with your favorite book boyfriend. Hell, I'm even in a relationship myself, and I will probably end up spending Valentine's Day with a book. (Though, this is because we choose not to celebrate, so don't feel bad for me or anything.) I thought I would take some time to make a list of some of my favorite dudes. These are the guys who make me swoon every time I read, who are just too precious cinnamon-roll-y for the real world, but whom I love all the same. Note: I fully acknowledge that this post is absolutely heteronormative. Also note: For any teenaged YA guys that I choose, that crush is coming from Teenaged Me. Or I'm projecting them forward into adulthood. I am not literally imagining mid-30s me with a teenage boyfriend, because that would be Not Okay. Also ALSO note: Spoiler warnings for all the books listed below. There were MANY I could...

“I never loved reading until I feared I would lose it. One does not love breathing.”   News of Harper Lee's passing broke today, and I want to take this time to pay my respects to her and to one of my favorite, most cherished books of all time. I first read this book as a high school student, and while I enjoyed it then, I couldn't have realized at the time the tremendous impact it would have on me until well over a decade later, when I became a teacher myself and taught it to my own students. What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said? It is a life-changing novel about racism, justice (or lack thereof), empathy, and kindness. It's also a novel about growing up. It's a novel about a certain type of loss of innocence, one that involves learning hard truths about the people around us, but that also asks us not to harden our hearts. "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all ...