lara simmons

Summer is over, school has started and the sun is warming us a little less, which must mean it is time for my final summer reading, watching, and listening challenge post. Here are some highlights from the past 3 weeks: BOOKS The Color Purple by Alice Walker - I know I have read this before, but it jumped off of my bookshelf three weeks ago, and once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. In the back of the book Alice Walker thanks "everybody in this book for coming," and I don't believe I have ever read a book whose characters felt so true to life, as if they were channeled and not written. An amazing read. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail - I picked this book out of our Little Free Library months ago, but it never made it to the top of my stack until I started this challenge. What a shame. This is such a beautiful book. Told from the perspective of a journalist who joins a number of families from Cherán, Mexico on their journeys acro...

Quick update on my summer reading challenge, Many Voices, Many Rooms: Although I will be continuing to read, watch, and listen to diverse media during the last two weeks of summer, I am going to be take a hiatus from writing this blog for the next couple of weeks. I am taking some time off to enjoy the last days of summer AND, I am also in the process of finishing not one, but two, new books, which I will be self-publishing in early September. I hope you will continue to think about reading, listening, and watching more widely -- and outside of your cultural comfort zone -- and I will publish a complete list of highlights from the last three weeks of the challenge in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, here are some wicked smart kids talking about why we need diverse books (and media!). Find out more at www.diversebooks.org . Thanks for coming along with me on this journey and see you again soon!

Highlights This Week The first highlight this week is another "I'm late to the party" entry, Radiotopia 's podcast Ear Hustle . Produced by Nigel Poor , a visual artist and now podcaster, who has been volunteering at California's San Quentin prison for eight years, and Earlonne Woods, an inmate at the prison, this podcast gives listeners a look "inside." The stories they tell are both shocking and sweet, and also important as we as a nation are forced to take a closer look at the inequities in all of our systems, including the penal system. No spoilers in this review, but season three includes a very happy ending for one of the inmates. A great listen. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray -  Another entry this week about the penal system and its effect on a family. This is a hard read, covering a wide variety of difficult human issues including bulimia, infidelity, aging, divorce, fraud, betrayal, estrangement, and abuse,...

Highlights of the Week  Becoming by Michelle Obama - Like Crazy Rich Asians from last week's post , this is a book I had been "meaning to read," but had kind of put off because everyone I know was reading it (I am nothing if not a band-wagoner). While browsing the airport bookstore shelves, however, it leapt off the shelf demanding to be purchased. At first I was disappointed, the beginning chapters read like summary of my own life in a tight-knit family in Iowa. Little did I know this would soon make this book feel like a conversation I was having with an old friend. In the book Michelle talks about the instant affinity she felt for Iowans while on the campaign trail, "I was in Iowa, but I had the distinct feeling of being at home. Iowans, I was realizing were like Shieldses and Robinson. They didn't suffer fools. They didn't trust people who put on airs. They could sniff out a phony a mile away." Soon, it became a book I couldn't put down. Her ...

Highlights of the Week   The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich - Years ago I read - and loved - Louise Erdrich's early books: Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Crown of Columbus (written with her late husband), but it has been years since I picked up one of her books. Recently my mom gave me a copy of this book, the first in a series about an Ojibwa girl named Omakayas. A spare, beautiful tale of life lived in community and with family according to the seasons, this book makes clear how much was lost when the white man ("chimookoman") "discovered" this land. I have already downloaded the second book from the library. This is another book I can't wait to share with students. Crazy Rich Asians - After hearing about it for the past year, I finally watched this movie on the plane ride home from Brazil last week -- I also watched a sweet Brazilian rom com that I wanted to include here, but I didn't write the name down and no matter how much I sea...

Highlight of the Week The Inexplicable Logic of My Life  by Benjamin Alire Sáenz -  The New York Times book review calls this, a  “mesmerizing, poetic exploration of family, friendship, love and loss.” I call it a heart-warming read and a book I can’t wait to share with my students. From the acclaimed author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which I also read and loved, my favorite quote comes from the Dad (Vincente), “No extra credit for being a decent human being.” In other words: just be a decent human being. Great advice for these troubling times. Other Highlights   Closer Than They Appear a podcast featuring Carvell Wallace - The tagline for this podcast is, “ If America is an estranged family, this podcast is our awkward holiday dinner,” but I found it softer than that. At once honest and hopeful, I am going to let two quotes from the podcast speak for themselves:      "Hate and anger are guard dogs to fear...

Highlight of the Week This week’s highlight is the podcast “ Tell Them, I AM ,” which is about "the small moments that define who we are and who we are not" featuring all Muslim voices. My favorite is still the very first one I listened to, a story by Akbar Ahmed about a train journey that changed his life. The host, Misha Euceph, starts each episode with an anecdote from her own life and then lets her guests take it from there. Notable guests include Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Iqbal Theba (Glee and Community), and Tan France (Queer Eye), but some of the best stories are from people I had never heard of. Simply lovely.  Other Highlights "Late Night" - written by and staring Mindy Kaling (The Office and The Mindy Project), and directed by Nisha Ganatra, Late Night deals directly, but also gently and with humor, with issues of racism, sexism and discrimination in the writers' room of a late night television show. Rogerebert.com ...

Highlight of the Week The highlight this week is a podcast called "The Nod ," dedicated to "telling the stories of Black life that don't get told anywhere else." Hosted by Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings, this podcast is sometimes funny, sometimes challenging, and always entertaining and educational. Some of my favorite episodes are: "One-On-One ," in which a young woman tells the story of how she reinvents her relationship with her dad after she stops playing basketball; " Rapper's Dismay " tells the story of a fifteen year old boy who uses argumentative writing to shine a light on redlining and oppression in his community (during my student teaching I used this episode with my students and they were rapt ); and any episode featuring the game " Six Degrees of Black Separation ." Maybe the most stirring episode I listened to was, " I am a White Woman ," a review of the movie "White Chicks." Uncomfortable and...

Highlight of the Week My number one highlight this week is, without a doubt, " The Parable of the Sower " by Octavia Butler . An African American Sci-Fi writer, Butler wrote this freakishly prescient book (The New Yorker describes it as, " Octavia Butler’s Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to 'Make AmericaGreat Again '") in 1993, but reading it feels like looking into our near future a few years before it happens. If you are a secondary ELA teacher, this is the perfect book to replace "1984", "The Handmaid's Tale," or any dystopian novel you normally teach. Featuring a young African American female hero you can't help but fall in love with and root for, this is one of the best books I have read in years. Other Highlights Always Be My Maybe - A heart-warming romcom starring Ali Wong and Randall Park , this movie earned a solid 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and was the perfect way to spend a vacation evening with m...

This week I worked on decolonizing the stack of books beside my bed, my Netflix queue, and my podcast feed. Here is what I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week:    Highlight of the Week My reading, watching, listening highlight this week is the Netflix show “ On My Block ,” described on IMDB as,"A coming-of-age story about four bright, street-savvy friends navigating their way through high school in the gritty inner city of South Central Los Angeles.” This show features four excellent young actors and has a lot of heart. It’s not without its problems: the character called “Jasmine” plays into a lot of stereotypes about Latinas in the inner city and [spoiler alert] the fact that Jamal actually finds the Roller World money borders on the fantastical, but for me the importance of the show is summed up in one line from Cesar, “They don’t think we’re real. They think we’re a costume.” I believe that all evil that happens between humans starts with a dehuman...

I recently finished a graduate program in teaching (which is why you haven’t heard from me on the blog in awhile...) and will be graduating on June 16th with a Master in Teaching degree from Seattle University . One of the topics we covered was the desperate need in this country for a more inclusive, multicultural curriculum. As a white person, the need for representation in the curriculum was something I hadn’t had to think about before because my stories  - or at least the stories of my white male ancestors - were represented in the curriculum, but in order to engage students (ALL students), they need to see themselves in the curriculum, they need to hear their stories and the stories of their ancestors. How do we do that?  One of the things I have really been looking forward to about finishing this program (besides working with kids in schools) is the opportunity to read for pleasure again. I really miss picking up a good book and diving into another person’s world. As ...