Reading picture books again as an adult is so joyful! I love this idea. Solidarity for no thanksgiving celebrations from someone in the UK - the holiday has always really confused me as a non American. I hope you have a wonderful walk tomorrow ❤️ and that final picture of your dog is absolutely glorious!
Reading picture books is so joyful, truly! Thanksgiving is indeed confusing—or, at least, it doesn't make any sense if you know anything about history and care about, you know, humans. Appreciate the solidarity from across the ocean, and thanks for the warm wishes!
Yes, caring about humans seems to be very very hard for a lot of people. I don’t know much of the history except the very general understanding that it’s a holiday that represents a lot of slaughter & violence (otherwise known as perfect festive themes). Maybe I’ll do some reading this weekend to join you in resistance! Sending lots of across the ocean solidarity & love!
Thank you, Laura, for calling out this sad "holiday." I'm celebrating by rereading David Silverman's book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving and listening (again) to @Ben Tumin's fine interview with him: https://skippedhistory.substack.com/p/professor-david-j-silverman-on-the-897
Thank you, Laura, for your words as always. I especially appreciated the poem and Instagram post. Read this while on a walk just now, which felt especially appropriate
I love kidlit so much, and even wrote a bookish kids column in a local paper for a while, but as my kids grow we read them less and less 💔 I love that you’re reading them as a part of your joy project! I have winters gift on our TBR and just picked up homeland at our local library yesterday!
Aw, I love that you wrote a column about it! It's really been astonishing how much joy it's brought me already in just a few days. I am going to become someone who shouts and shouts and shouts about how all adults should read picture books! I hope you enjoy those two books—I loved Homeland so much.
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving either, for many reasons, and it’s so interesting to see how uncomfortable it makes people at work when I simply say “we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving” when they ask what I’m doing for the holiday. Sigh.
It is heartening to see more people not celebrating, even though I know we are very, very outnumbered. I've had the same experience with people getting so uncomfortable. So I do what I do best which is just talk about it publicly! It took me a few years to completely bow out of celebrating altogether, and my little hope is that if we just keep speaking about it, more people will make the same decision! Love and solidarity to you and your fam.
Good for you! I like this idea so I may join in. I need to be doing it anyways for the sake of my kids but sometimes our too-full schedules get in the way.
That's so understandable! It definitely struggle to make time for things just for myself, so I can only imagine how much harder it is with kids as well. Here's to lots (or even a tiny bit) of joyful reading time!
Reading picture books again as an adult is so joyful! I love this idea. Solidarity for no thanksgiving celebrations from someone in the UK - the holiday has always really confused me as a non American. I hope you have a wonderful walk tomorrow ❤️ and that final picture of your dog is absolutely glorious!
Reading picture books is so joyful, truly! Thanksgiving is indeed confusing—or, at least, it doesn't make any sense if you know anything about history and care about, you know, humans. Appreciate the solidarity from across the ocean, and thanks for the warm wishes!
Yes, caring about humans seems to be very very hard for a lot of people. I don’t know much of the history except the very general understanding that it’s a holiday that represents a lot of slaughter & violence (otherwise known as perfect festive themes). Maybe I’ll do some reading this weekend to join you in resistance! Sending lots of across the ocean solidarity & love!
Thank you, Laura, for calling out this sad "holiday." I'm celebrating by rereading David Silverman's book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving and listening (again) to @Ben Tumin's fine interview with him: https://skippedhistory.substack.com/p/professor-david-j-silverman-on-the-897
I'll have to look that one up! I will also be doing a lot of reading.
Thank you, Laura, for your words as always. I especially appreciated the poem and Instagram post. Read this while on a walk just now, which felt especially appropriate
Thank you, as always, for reading! And I am indeed glad you read this while on a walk, very appropriate. 💙
That’s exactly why I did it!
I love kidlit so much, and even wrote a bookish kids column in a local paper for a while, but as my kids grow we read them less and less 💔 I love that you’re reading them as a part of your joy project! I have winters gift on our TBR and just picked up homeland at our local library yesterday!
Aw, I love that you wrote a column about it! It's really been astonishing how much joy it's brought me already in just a few days. I am going to become someone who shouts and shouts and shouts about how all adults should read picture books! I hope you enjoy those two books—I loved Homeland so much.
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving either, for many reasons, and it’s so interesting to see how uncomfortable it makes people at work when I simply say “we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving” when they ask what I’m doing for the holiday. Sigh.
It is heartening to see more people not celebrating, even though I know we are very, very outnumbered. I've had the same experience with people getting so uncomfortable. So I do what I do best which is just talk about it publicly! It took me a few years to completely bow out of celebrating altogether, and my little hope is that if we just keep speaking about it, more people will make the same decision! Love and solidarity to you and your fam.
Good for you! I like this idea so I may join in. I need to be doing it anyways for the sake of my kids but sometimes our too-full schedules get in the way.
That's so understandable! It definitely struggle to make time for things just for myself, so I can only imagine how much harder it is with kids as well. Here's to lots (or even a tiny bit) of joyful reading time!