We are all warriors

There is so much in the air, I fear we are all unwell and yet oddly looking at this time through new eyes many of us have a newfound gratitude for our health. My 83-yr-old mother has counted herself  lucky to have avoided Covid for the last two years but tested positive last week after she coughed her way through the Super Bowl. I got a cold around the same time and really hoped it was just a cold but tested positive on Friday. This is my second go round and the vaccination and booster made a big difference in how I feel. My symptoms are more manageable this time. Last time I felt like I would never recover. I didn’t have to be hospitalized although I did end up in the emergency room with pneumonia months after recovering. This pandemic is complicated, confusing, and frustrating and we may never have all the answers. People around me have never had it, never even had reason to take a test and others fall deathly ill. 

My children are warriors for making it through their various situations. Kaylee braved the streets of Brooklyn every day, working from home luckily but still trekking out to breathe and live in the city. Tristan worked through the entire pandemic as many have because his job is not something you can do from home. And Japhy braved her first year of school, both virtually and in-person, and and it has made her rethink everything about why she is going to school. We are all warriors, whether we've experienced symptoms or not, as we wind our way through this new reality. 

In the midst of this pandemic we have people who feel the need to question books being read by children. As if we don’t already have enough to worry about right now. Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine seems like something of great importance. But instead some are setting their sights on schools; how we are educating students to be world citizens, and libraries and books that might be too honest about world history or show a naked body.  Art Spiegelman’s 1986 comic book biography, Maus, was recently banned by a Tennessee school district.  After I read the article I checked our district online catalog, found a copy, and read it. It was a very-thought provoking read and a good way for older students to understand a Holocaust survivors story. And check out David Corn's article in Mother Jones. Please go out an buy a copy or two. 

Why does real history scare people? Why does reading about human relationships scare people? We didn’t conjure up the pandemic by reading a book but somehow reading a book about a gay character might make a teen choose that life style?  This logic makes me question everything as well. How will we move past this puritanical state we are in?  It could take a flood. 

My heart; it's February

It's bitter cold out these days with lots of snow and ice. Normal for Iowa, not so for the Southern states getting crushed with winter storms. I'm sure there was mad rush for winter coats and snow shovels. Cold weather is the perfect time to read and I just finished The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James by Ashley Herring Blake. This book has been gathering dust on my school library shelf for about a year. I ordered it after reading very good reviews and I had a personal and professional goal to continue to round out our library shelves with diverse titles. It's maddening to think this sweet story could make someone else angry and ask for it to be removed from the library. What a terrible place we are in as we build out shelves specifically for all students only to hear that we could be punished for those choices.

Sunny St. James is a 12-year-old young girl who has heart problems both physically and emotionally. She receives a new heart to replace her old damaged one all while she is trying to figure out who she wants to kiss.  What she really wants is to be a "normal" tween who can run and play on the beach and kissing another person is part of that. She focuses her attention on boys because that's what is "normal" but in her heart she is curious about kissing girls. She and Kate live in a small beach community where everyone knows her and she's lead a physically restrictive life while waiting for this new heart. 

Her best friend Margot used to help her through all this but she branched out and made new friends from her swim team (an activity Sunny couldn't participate in) and Sunny feels abandoned. One of her goals after surgery is to meet a new best friend and one day on the beach she meets Quinn someone brand new to the island who doesn't know Sunny's history. Her real mother Lena abandoned her as well when Sunny was four and Lena's best friend Kate has been raising Sunny. After surgery Lena decides to reappear in Sunny's life creating more confusion for both Kate and Sunny.

There is so much emotion, both sad and joyful in the story and I wish I'd had this book while I was in elementary school because many of Sunny's questions and feelings about her surgery and recovery are emotions I've been through myself. I was 11 years old when it was discovered that my mitral valve was damaged due to an undetected case of rheumatic fever as a child. I underwent valve replacement surgery at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. I received a porcine valve and four years later after experiencing symptoms of heart failure, the valve was replaced again with a St. Jude's plastic valve. I was lucky to be in the same hospital and to have the same surgeon (Dr. Kaiser). 

Through the process I often felt angry that I didn't feel good, that I couldn't participate in activities, that I had this scar running down my chest, that I had medicine to take which made me feel old. I adjusted over time and feel blessed that my parents saw my symptoms and knew I needed medical help. Sunny St. James spoke to me in a way that made me feel understood even at my age. She might also speak to a young girl who is experiencing the same confused feeling about who she wants to kiss. Imagine that young person hugging this book in their arms and understanding that they have allies. Making a connection through literature can easily help a young (or old) person feel in balance about their unique thoughts and feelings.  The "I'm not alone..." idea. 

If you can imagine this book on a banned book list you can see how banning books sucks out all of our humanity. To counteract that feeling you should request this book from your public library or order it, read it, pass it on...it's a story worth sharing!