Janet Benlien Reeves

I don’t remember the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, but I was alive for it. When I was in elementary school, the teachers would give us magnets and send us door-to-door to collect aluminum cans to be recycled and save the world. The magnets, in case you were wondering, helped us distinguish between aluminum and tin. Recycling aluminum was essential because, my teachers taught, the world had almost used it all up. Tin, I guess, could still be tossed. I don’t remember recycling that before the 90’s. But using the magnets to collect aluminum is my earliest memory of environmental action. I didn’t know on that first Earth Day that special interest groups across the nation united their efforts for the first time ever or that college students, politicians, business leaders, and activists spent that day learning, teaching, and making others aware of issues regarding the health of our world’s environment. Our world has come a long way since then. Those who use up are taught to give back....

This week I started reading The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams, and I am entranced with it. I can’t write a review because I am only on chapter 3, but I can’t wait to see what happens to Mukesh, Aleisha, and others introduced, but yet to be identified. And though I have already read most of the books on the reading list contained in this particular book, I have added those new to me to my own TBR pile. I am writing about this now because one of the main characters, Aleisha, has my dream job. She is a librarian. However, she is a teenage librarian working only for the summer. (How did this happen?!) Library patrons annoy her if they need help. She attempts to ignore them, hoping they’ll find what they need without bothering her. If they cannot, she is impatient and rude. She admits that she doesn’t know much about books and, therefore, can’t make recommendations. She can only help people find books if they know what books they want, and even then, she directs them to the computer i...