I did it y’all! I realize that reading one book for fun per month may not seem like a lot to many of you, but to this teacher/student/writer, one additional book per month was a HUGE accomplishment. So, this year I’m doing it again.
Last year, I focused on reading more stories by women of color and, particularly, immigrant women of color. I diversified my reading and learned a lot in the process. However, one of the unifying themes of last year’s reading was the constant malaise of hearing sad stories. While I think it’s important to always be aware of other people’s stories, I’m also very attuned to the fact that, as a teacher, I can only remain effective if I’m staying properly motivated. Sometimes, the world is a horrible enough place that motivation can be a really difficult thing to find.
So, this year will be the year of hope.
In 2020, I will be reading books by women about women heroes—our sheroes.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Katherine Arden, author of The Winternight Trilogy, is originally from Austin, TX. After spending a year in Moscow after high school, she moved to Vermont to attend college at Middlebury where she majored in Russian and French. Arden says that her time in college left her with few answers and little direction, so “lacking any better ideas” she moved to Hawaii to work on a farm. It was there that she would begin writing the first book of The Winternight Trilogy, The Bear and the Nightingale.
There are books that you read, and then there are books that you CONSUME. I devoured The Bear and the Nightingale from the moment I picked it up until the very last page. Arden’s lush descriptions of the Russian landscape, her detailed retelling of traditional tales, and the gradual unfolding of her characters make for a rapturous story.
Often, books about female protagonists can feel very trope-y. Not that there’s anything wrong with a story about a woman lacking in self-confidence who suddenly finds her special gift, but those stories never caught my attention. The Bear and the Nightingale is a much simpler story and is paradoxically therefore more complex. As we watch the main character, Vasya, change and grow, we watch both the natural progression of age and the development of a character who becomes like a friend.
In many ways, I think our friends should be the most inspiring people in our lives. While it’s nice to have important figures, famous people, etc. to venerate, the people who surround us in our daily life and work—those who encourage us to move forward, who themselves continue to move forward despite their own obstacles—those are the most amazing people. Books not only tell us stories about larger than life heroes, but also about our friends—why we need them, how they make us more of ourselves, and how, together, we move forward with hope.
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