May 21, Thursday evening -- Reading a book for middle school students

She would not show me the book. It was something she was previewing so she could put it out for the middle school students she teaches. She also didn't want her picture on the internet, which I can respect. Different people have different comfort zones.

When she reads for herself, she enjoys history. Something she recommends -- A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. It reads, she said, like a novel. The book includes voices not heard from in traditional histories of our country, like the voices of war resisters and American Indians.

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Today I also got an email back from the reader I photographed two days ago, the woman who was reading Thomas Merton. She was going to give me her blog address with her poetry, and she came through. The poem she'd let me read on her phone, the one about Barack Obama, is linked to here.