
Summer Reading
Waverly’s middle and high school humanities teachers made a commitment to offer summer reading for students, reflecting the events going on in the country around the Black experience in America. This week, we share some of the personal reading members of our faculty and staff engaged in this summer.
- Rebecca (2/3 Associate Teacher): I have been reading Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights by Lawrence Goldstone. We are planning to learn about voting rights within our theme, so I’ve been reading this to inform my teaching.
- Sydney (Drama): The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. All about London and Churchill during the Blitz – a great read!
- Amy Sedivy (HS English): Three books, all 600 to 800 pages! Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates — so good I did not want it to end. A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer — a crazy, inventive world beyond a mysterious door. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson — riveting nonfiction about Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister and the onset of WWII.
- Lisa (MS English): I read Internment by Samira Ahmed, a science fiction novel set in the near future that imagines what might happen if Muslim Americans were rounded up and forced into camps the way Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. I am one of those readers who always tries to imagine how I would react in any written crisis, and this take on prejudice against Muslims was a great interest to me. It has some romantic elements, along with suspense appropriate for young adults. Warning! There is fair amount of swearing in Internment, but otherwise it’s good for middle school readers. I think it could make a very good movie.
- Bennel (HS History): Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur; We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love; and My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem.
- Jennifer (Admissions Director): The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore; Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson; and I found a copy of a (beautifully) annotated Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I know students really enjoyed last year.
- Stina (5/6 Lead Teacher): I am reading A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff, and Attainable Sustainable: The Lost Art of Self-Reliant Living by Kris Bordessa.
- Marina (Preschool Lead Teacher): Rethinking Early Childhood Education edited by Ann Pelo and The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. I also read The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes — this was to aid me in my book I am writing s…l…o…w…l…y.
- Alexis (Receptionist): Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen.
- Susan (Kindergarten Lead Teacher): Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis; Methodology of the Oppressed by Chela Sandoval; and Rocking the Boat: How Tempered Radicals Effect Change Without Making Trouble by Debra Meyerson.
- Brittany (1/2 Lead Teacher): I read I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown; The Guest List by Lucy Foley; and am finishing The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd right now.
- Elaine (College Counselor): How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi; Untamed by Glennon Doyle; and Emotional Detox by Sherianna Boyle.
- Michelle (ES Art): Two great books: All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks and The Book of Delights by Ross Gay.
- Oonagh (K/1 Lead Teacher): Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty — easy reading, fluffy book, but also a bit of a cautionary tale. Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards — a great read that is updated every year. I find it compulsive reading every summer. My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay — if you only have time to read one autobiography, this should be it. A well-known and well-respected poet and writer in the UK. I love him – his poetry, his way of looking at the world, his indomitable spirit and fight against all odds. He also happens to have been one of only two Black children to grow up in my small hometown.
- Rains (2/3 Lead Teacher): Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo — it is vibrant, beautifully written, life-affirming, endlessly readable, very funny, and poignant. The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson — a thoughtful, sensitive, and ultimately uplifting book for children about loss of all kinds. Age appropriate for kids four and up, but deeply moving for all who read it.
- Barbara (Farm Manager): I spent the summer reading all of the books from Amy’s English class last year, plus The Third Plate by Dan Barber (highly recommended) and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (life changing!).
- Jen J. (Learning Specialist): I read about three books a week! Here are three from the list: North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person; The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.
- Yanndery (1/2 Associate Teacher): Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott; Maid by Stephanie Land; and Signs by Laura Lynne Jackson.