Thursday, March 10, 2016

Food for Thought: Comfort Books

DISCLAIMER: The following is the dramatization (emphasis on the DRAMA) of a kindergarten teacher's bad day. Any similarity to real events and/or obnoxious children is thoroughly coincidental. Almost probably.
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The urge to cram my fingers in my ears is overwhelming. The students are gone, but their nonsense rings in my head.

Bicker, bicker.

It wasn't me!

Pencils drum on the table. Thump, thump, thump, thump!

My pencil is broken! (That ggggrrkkk is my teeth grinding. I despise sharpening pencils.)

Cough, cough. Aaaaachoooo! A hand claps over a face. Wide eyes silently scream, I need a tissue!

Another day in Kindergartenland. Another squirt of hand-sanitizer pools in my palm. Die, germs, die! I glance at the clock, gauging how long until I can escape the four walls that are squeezing the air from my lungs and the rational thoughts from my brain.

Ten minutes!

Ten minutes until pajama pants, whatever chocolate is left in the cupboard (probably those fat chocolate chips that will never make it into cookies), a fluffy blanket tucked up to my chin, and That Book.

I wander about the classroom, straightening table caddies and retrieving the odd crayon, my mind already on other issues. Why did I leave off just as Anne met Royal Gardiner? No matter how tall, handsome, and gentlemanly Roy might be, he's no Gilbert Blythe. You're not fooling anyone Miss Shirley. I snag a gum wrapper off the floor and scowl. How could one woman misunderstand her own feelings so badly? (And where in the world did they get gum?)
Gilbert, good. Gum, bad.
I throw my jacket over my arm. My keys jangle in the lock. My mind is already eighty-five percent lost to Anne of the Island. (The other fifteen percent is reserved for wondering where the gum is now.)

And yes, I always read the ending twice. (Incidentally, I almost never look at the underside of my tables. It's just not worth the mental anguish.)
When the world is so loud and obnoxious that it squeezes your mind with its insistence, running away is the only option. Disappearing into a favorite book on a weeknight is like sampling an exotic chocolate. Utterly delicious.

Comfort reads. This is mine. Here are a few of yours:
I'd love to hear about your favorite stories and how they help to calm, energize, inspire you. Leave me a comment!

Also, all the book titles are linked to the best Amazon deals I could find. So, stock up on the chocolate and get cozy! Comfort reads are just a click away. (Or in my case, a bookshelf away.)

20 comments:

  1. Harry Potters--all of them--are such comfort reads for me.

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    1. Thanks, Jennifer! Personally, I love the audio books best. That narrator has such a cool voice. Totally magical. Harry Potter forever!

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  2. The Shopaholic books, A Little Princess, Little Women, April's Year, and the Orphan Train books by Joan Lowery Nixon (anything by her, actually).

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    1. Ooh! I've only read a Shopohilic book or two. Those sounds fun!

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  3. Anything by Jane Austen...with chocolate

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    1. Everything is better with chocolate. And Ms. Austen. The perfect combo. Add peanut butter and I'm all over it!

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  4. Anything Catherine Cookson...(I never tire of reading, and re-reading her books. Best mention Carol Hedges as she's just above (close enough to clout me ;) ) *winks*... am currently skipping between Hedges and 'Alan Bennett', The Lady in the Van (which is fabulous by the way...as was the film) :)

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    1. I'll have to add Catherine Cookson to the list. And Carol's getting her feature in a couple more weeks! Yahoo! Going to be fun!

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  5. Now that I'm coaching kinder-aged kids, I completely feel this! And yes, those chocolate chips never make it into any cookies. ;) I don't have any books that I keep going back to because my reading list is just tooooooooo long. But I am quick to discard books that don't take me away from the world and immerse me so thoroughly in the story that I forget everything that's going on around me. Though I too have Harry Potter, Little Women and all of the Anne Of Green Gables on my shelf too. I should give them some love. :)

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    1. I have a crazy long list of books I should be reading...but I go ahead and dive back into my favorites when I need a lift. It's like chatting with an old friend. And I never reread the Anne series without learning something new about myself. I love that! Thanks for dropping by, Heather!

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  6. This is funny - I just recently pulled out my Anne of Green Gables (all 8 of them in the original series) books. These, alongside "Little Women", are my 'go to' comfort books. Maeve Binchy, Cathy Kelly and Sophie Kinsella are close seconds. But sometimes, chocolate or hugs are the best for what ails me. ����

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    1. Ooh! Sophie Kinsella is fun too! And yes, hugs are always welcome too. In the land of kindergarten, there are lots of hugs.

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  7. Like Heather, I seldom get to reread books, but the ones I remember most fondly as comfort books are those I read with my children when they were young: Swallows and Amazons, the Middle Moffatt, the Railway Children... Also A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was one of the last books I was able to re-read with my mother.

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    1. Books with mama! So sweet! My mom and I read all the Harry Potter books as they came out. Also, she's the one who I read my books to before I publish them. Mama reads deserve their own post...

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  8. I love books. When I was a young mother, I used to read while I was nursing my baby -- Feed the baby, gonna stop at the next chapter. Baby goes to sleep, still gonna stop. Baby wakes up an hour or so later -- neither one of us has moved, only the book pages!! Have LOVED Little Women, Jane Eyre, Scarlet Letter, Green Mansions, King of the Wind . . . Have robbed my kids's bookcases for gems such as The Shack and The Book Thief. Loved sharing Harry Potter and Ann Shirley with Sarah. Good times. I am a book junkie and don't know when to stop!!!

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    1. Go mom! No wonder I never had a chance...books are in my blood. (And I still haven't read half of those, mom!)

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  9. Our list is almost exactly the same lol I knew we were kindred spirits ;)

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    1. We really need to be neighbors, Cathy. Except I don't love cow stink. But I adore kids. The more authentic the better (translation: I find extremely well-behaved kids weird. And boring.)

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  10. Jane Austen and anything relating to the Middle Ages. More fact than fiction these days.

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    1. The Middle Ages are interesting...as if I know anything about them. But I enjoy anything Robin Hood or King Arthur, which is an interesting mix of history and fantasy. I can appreciate that. Thanks, April!

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