Rhonda Reese Purtee

I have always read All. The. Books. I was graced with parents who looked at learning as a lifelong privilege and responsibility, easily accessed through the written word. Open books were always in our home and part of the daily rhythm of life. I don’t think there was ever a room of any home we lived in that didn’t include a stack of books and/or periodicals, and I am grateful to have learned early that reading is a doorway to answers for my questions and questions for my answers. It remains so to this day.

So, it has been with no small degree of astonishment, disappointment, and frankly, disgust that I have watched the grasping power of authoritarianism, disingenuously masked behind a pretense of “values” recently removing paragraphs, then chapters, and finally whole books from shelf after shelf across the schools, libraries, and public spaces of this land of the free and the home of the brave.

As March is National Reading Month, I’ve decided this might be a good time to share some of the books & periodicals I have found to be worth reading. Some of them may well be on somebody’s banned book list somewhere. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today’s book is; The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy.

A literary graphic novel or perhaps a contemporary fable, its timeless story is told through relatively few words, beautiful illustrations, and the space between and around both. This is the book I reach for when I want to (paraphrasing the author here); “live courageously with more kindness for myself and others. And to ask for help when I need it – which is always a brave thing to do.”

This one I have in hardback and in audiobook format, for those times when I just need to close my eyes and let the words embrace my heart.