Anne’s beauty

The sun went away this weekend, and so did the power, for a while. I love autumn, but I wasn’t ready for it to come storming in the last week of August, blowing down trees and power lines all over. It’s supposed to rain all week, which means a driveway full of soggy pine needles that are going to get tracked all over the house.

But it also means that the grass is going to green up again, the fires will hopefully die down, the leaves are going to change, and one happy little toddler is going to dance around outside in her puddle boots. It means I can go through dozens of cans of pumpkin and warm the house with the oven until it all smells like cookies and bread and muffins.

I’ve been reading Anne of Avonlea, and I just love Anne’s ability to see beauty in so many things that other people see only as ordinary or even ugly. I think that’s a talent that could do a lot of good in the world, especially in the world of writers.

There’s a beautiful scene where Anne and Gilbert are discussing their hopes and dreams, and Anne says, in her dreamy way, “I’d like to add some beauty to life . . . some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.” (54)

A worthwhile goal, no?

A Bouquet of Newly Sharpened Pencils

A switch was flipped on September 1st. The mornings turned cool and crisp, the smell of browning leaves filled the air, and it became that time of year when New York cyber-lovers offer to send bouquets of newly sharpened pencils. My brain clicked from medieval fantasy plots to high school plots. And, just in time, I got Mr. Terupt Falls Again from the library and have been happily devouring it.

It took about ten pages of Because of Mr. Terupt for Mr. Terupt to become one of my favorite fictional teachers of all time. I laughed through the first half of the book and cried through the second half. I love each of the seven students and their stories, and I love the way Mr. Terupt crafts them from children into young adults.

And I also like to imagine that that the the author’s name (Rob Buyea) is pronounced boo-yah, although his website tells me otherwise.

So what about you, my dear readers? Who are some of your favorite fictional teachers?