{photo from SLOCA’s Flickr site}
We’ve enjoyed seeing what other SLOCA parents are reading these days, so we asked a few SLOCA staff members to join in the fun! Maybe you’ll find an interesting read to pick up from among their stacks:
Katie Morales
Executive Assistant and HR Coordinator
I've been on a bit of a new-book-reading rampage of late, as instigated by my summer reading of Dracula; but, with the holidays approaching and the need for quiet moments increasing, I'm beginning to slow down and reach for the familiar. While I have no nightstand, due to the fact that our bed sits on the ground, these are the books I have within reach of my pillow:
- L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables is my most recent SLOCA library book, which quite often accompanies me on my bus commute between SLO and AG.
- The next two, the Book of Common Prayer and Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home (Jessica Snell, ed.), I purchased together in an effort to begin a journey toward incorporating more tradition and historical connection into my life.
- The Bible
- Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (purchased from the SLOCA school store – I couldn't resist!) which I am reading for the second time this year – currently as a read-aloud with my husband.
Jessica Wilson
Preschool Teacher (Track A) and Little Wonders Assistant (Track B)
I'm currently working my way through one new novel and a few old favorites.
- Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block
I'm sending my niece a copy of Weetzie Bat and wanted to reread it because I loved it so very much the first time around. Francesca has a way with modern fairy tales and I still adore her and Weetzie (my cat is even named after one of the characters in the series). - Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith
I'm working my way through this in a note taking sense as I want to start a book group of journal wreckers. I'm pushing myself to write it out, plan it up, and do it! - Women, Art, and Society by Whitney Chadwick
I need my high lighter for this one. So many tremendous women out there. I feel like I my early education left me hanging so I pull this out every now and then to learn about a few awesome women I never knew about. - Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Eleanor and Park! Rainbow Rowell! Enough said! Such a great read. Also Fan Girl. I have to read these slowly to soak it all in. This is my third read this year! - Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
My new read. It is taking me a long time because the words are so delicious, only they surprise me with their deliciousness and I am left wishing this was my own copy so I could highlight the heck out of it! - Play Pen: New Children's Book Illustration by Martin Salisbury
My eye candy before bed. So much happy in one volume. I do love a lovely illustrated work and this book is full of them!
Paul McCullough
High School Literature and Composition Teacher, Parent Book Club Coordinator
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Pensees by Blaise Pascal
- Emma by Jane Austen
- The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
- Wanderulst: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
- Natural Theology by Emil Brunner and Karl Barth
- The Lyttleton Hart-Davis Letters by George Lyttleton and Rupert Hart-Davis
- How Dante Can Save Your Life by Rod Dreher
- The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt
Emily Ferrarini
Librarian, School Store, and Friday Academy Class Book Club Leader
- I am re-reading Emma along with my high school student. (This is his copy; I'm doing the audio version, which is fantastic! Look for the one narrated by Juliet Stevenson.) Jane Austen is a tough nut to crack, but so immensely rewarding once you catch on to the language and humor. Well worth the effort!
- The Shakespeare stuff is to help me prepare for the UMS Must Read, Romeo and Juliet. I am working with Mr. Newman to plan a fun Romeo and Juliet activity for our 7th and 8th graders in trimester 2.
- A couple of the others were recommendations from SLOCA families: The Green Ember was generously purchased and donated to our library by SLOCA mom, Amy Sullivan. I can't wait to get further into it. Amy has good taste. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry (which I borrowed from another wonderful SLOCA mom, Susie Lerner) is a sweet novel about a man who runs a little book shop. I am also reading The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater. I don't know why it isn't pictured on my nightstand. I think one of my kids may have swiped it. This one was recommended and donated to the library by Edie Overduin. It's about powerful Scottish fairy horses that emerge from the ocean every autumn. I would never have picked this one up on my own, but it's riveting!
- The Handbook for Storytellers is a resource for me to find books to read to our Preschool, Jr. K, and Kinder classes.
- The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia is sort of self-explanatory. It speaks to me. I am a huge fan of C. S. Lewis, and I love this author's examination of how children read versus how adults read. I want to somehow be able to do it both ways.
Edie Overduin
Curricula Team
- Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope – This is the 4th book in the Barchester Chronicles series. I am making my way through them and I am really enjoying them!
- The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Connor – I wanted to get to know Flannery O'Conner. Her letters are the best way to do that – and some of them are a hoot!
- Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White
- The War that Forged a Nation by James McPherson – These are excellent essays on the Civil War and how it shaped our country.
- Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose – This is amazing, saddening, inspiring; I'm loving it (listening on audible).
- Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
- No Man’s Land: Fiction from a World at War edited by Pete Ayrton
- Sulha by Malka Marom
- Warriors of the Storm by Bernard Cornwell
Sara Lock
Fred and Betty’s Manager
- Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton
- The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
- Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
- Working by Studs Terkel
- Great German Short Stories by Stephen Spender
- The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson
- Iberia by James A. Michener
- Shiokuri Pass by Ayako Miura
- Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
- The Holy Bible New Revised Edition
- Lost Pueblo by Zane Grey
- The May 1978 National Geographic (it has an article about Robyn Davidson, a woman who trekked 1,700 miles across Western Australia alone with 3 camels)
- Independent People by Haldor Laxness
- The Bears and I by Robert Franklin Leslie
- The Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway
- Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smokey Mountains by Michael Frome
- The Joke by Milan Kundera
- Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
- Essential Writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Where the Indus is Young by Dervla Murphy
- My Kindle (Right now this has on it: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman and The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi)
