Road Map of Your Life Book Tag [CC]

[@karlalikestoread]

I laughed out loud when you mentioned South of the Border. I lived in South Carolina for a year and drove through there many times. I really enjoyed your answers. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on a Great Gatsby re-read, I’d like to do that too. I Wish I had an annotated book from my childhood, how lovely. I loved that you shared books that influenced the way you eat and cook, I’d love to see a food vlog! I live in the DC area now and I love it.

[@HannahsBooks]

How lovely! Where part of SC did you live in? Perhaps we can meet for tea or something sometime in DC!

[@karlalikestoread]

@@HannahsBooks I would love to meet up sometime! I lived on Daniel Island and it was dreamy, I love Charleston too.

[@readandre-read]

Thank goodness for an excellent home library! I really enjoyed your rendition of this tag. I also have the old paperback of The Great Gatsby from high school with my notes and some that my daughter added decades later. And The Moosewood cookbook was one of the first I owned; I still use the gazpacho recipe every summer. Your reading and life adventures are fascinating, Hannah!

[@HannahsBooks]

I love the idea of notes in a book from both you and your daughter! That is just excellent!

[@purplepumpkin6894]

Hi Hannah! I'm Tammy from western Virginia. I've been watching your videos for a while and I love them. What a treat to know that you grew up right outside North Carolina's "South of the Border." When I was a kid in the 80's, my family and I spent a few days one summer at South of the Border, staying in their campground, while we were on our way to Myrtle Beach, SC. It was every bit the tourist trap one would imagine, but now, decades later, my family still laughs and enjoys our memories of staying at a place so unabashedly silly. 😄 Your father's book sounds fascinating. I've spent quite a bit of time in coastal South Carolina and I take every opportunity to learn about the history of South Carolina's Low Country (Pawley's Island, Georgetown, Huntington Beach, etc.). I haven't quite made it to Charleston, SC yet, but would like to someday. What a beautiful way to commemorate the one year anniversary of your spouse's passing - thank you for sharing with us.

[@HannahsBooks]

Welcome, Tammy! How nice to have you here! I love hearing your memories about South of the Border. My parents both grew up in Myrtle Beach--which was a quiet little town during the winters but always hopping during the summer. Pawleys and Huntington Beach and Georgetown were favorite places to visit! It is so nice to hear from someone familiar with the area!

[@JamesRuchala]

I've been watching and learning from your videos over the last year but it's great to get a biographical overview of your life Hannah. Thanks for the kind words about my channel. I want to hear all those people do this tag too!

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much, James! I'm thrilled every time I see one of your videos pop up in my subscriptions. You're a wonderful addition to Booktube.

[@ToReadersItMayConcern]

Wow, this felt so intimate and calming to listen to. Thank you for offering so much of your life-reminds me how much of ourselves peppers and frames what we read. Something vital to remember. Diet for a Small Planet sounds especially fascinating. You summed up its significance especially well.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled you're making videos on booktube! I can imagine that Lappe's book might be very dated now--but at the time, it was transformative.

[@TimeTravelReads]

I loved hearing about your life. You have wonderful stories to tell.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much for your sweet words. I'd love to see how you would answer these questions.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

This was a delightful saunter through your life in places and books. I smiled at a mention of The Moosewood Cookbook.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thanks! It really was the cookbook of our generation, wasn't it!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@HannahsBooks my copy was well used.

[@LauraRodriguez-Peace]

Thank you for sharing, Hannah. Strength and Peace. 💜 Abrazos (Hugs)

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much, Laura. You are very kind.

[@marciajohansson769]

Such a wonderful video. It was quite interesting listening to you take us through your life in these stories. ❤

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much, Marcia!

[@BookishTexan]

Down by the Riverside is so great! Thank you for tagging me.

[@HannahsBooks]

I am still just blown away that you read both Down by the Riverside and Unspeakable! Unbelievable.

[@jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

Thanks for tagging me, Hannah. Interesting to hear your reading journey. North Carolina reminds me of "Where the Crawdads Sing" and also the description in Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad", now living in the country of Georgia, I am curious about Georgia, the Peach State, and came across your wonderful reading of Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises must Converge", whilst putting together the Georgian Readathon last month. My father was from West Yorkshire, every Summer we would spend a week there and were very familiar with the moors of Bronte Country, I am more Team Emily than Team Charlotte because of her great descriptions of the moors and her wonderfully stoic poetry. I no longer use cookbooks, I find a KZbin video if I want cooking inspiration, I particularly like Laura in the Kitchen an Italian-American. One of my early Booktube videos was "Home... a list of places... a response to Margaret Pinard's video "Book Birthday..." where I listed the many places I had lived in response to a Margaret Pinard video.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you very much for your comment about my reading. I'm flattered! I'll have to go look up your older video, which I may have seen but don't remember clearly! And thanks for the recommendation of Laura in the Kitchen!

[@Tristan-L-Space-Books]

I love all of the poetry mentions. And how fortunate that you were able to study under Seamus Heaney! I pick up Opened Ground from time to time and it always sends me into a pensive mood.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much for such a great tag, Tristan. Heaney means a lot to both me and my son. Incidentally, he lives in Boston and I plan to come visit sometime this summer. Perhaps we can meet at the Brattle Book Store one day, or something like that!

[@clarepotter7584]

I'm having poet envy!

[@HannahsBooks]

I only wish I had been better able to learn how to write decent poetry from them!

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

Wonderful! I’m adding my vote 🗳️ to hear Steve Donoghue do a complete version of this tag. 😂

[@HannahsBooks]

Thanks, David. I'd love to hear your version, too!

[@Nina_DP]

Hannah, we have so many favorite/influential books in common. How I wish I could discuss them as eloquently as you. Coincidentally, I just returned from a visit to Mt. Desert Island and Acadia National Park. It was glorious. Thank you for this wonderful video. It was a joy to watch.

[@HannahsBooks]

How wonderful that you got to spend time on Mt Desert! What a beautiful place!

[@bookofdust]

I read Diet for a Small Planet in high school, it was the centerpiece of my research paper on Vegetarianism, and it too transformed my life. The Enchanted Broccoli Forest was MY food bible, and quiche and lemon poppyseed scones were my signature recipes and what I brought to any event. I had had severe hearing issues as a young child, resulting in speech impediments and multiple eartube operations before the age of four. When my mother tried to get me speech therapy before Kindergarten, they said I could wait until l got to school to begin. Being an elementary teacher she knew that was too late, and successful advocated for me to get it and I’m the youngest person on the books in my state to have gotten it at the time. Of course now there’s early intervention, because the sooner you intervene the better. Most of my hearing and speech were restored to full functional level, but I always carried those experiences with me, and didn’t understand how much it affected me until later. My masters degree in education was on special needs children and one of my first observations was in a preschool setting of a boy with hearing deficit. The paper I wrote was a mirror reflected back at me. The child played, but in a roomful of other children he alone existed in parallel play. Others would fatally invite him to play, but usually not facing him and looking up at them, so he completely ignored them and didn’t join in. Other children felt like their friendship was rebuffed, and edged away. If he did connect though, his eyes and attention would be on the action of what was at hand, blocks, cars, etc. when the others child tried to dialogue about their play he again would miss it, which would eventually lead to hurt feeling and raised emotions between them. Here was my life splayed out before me, parallel playing by myself carefree, but once engaged with another child all would go wrong. I became interested in Education for the Deaf, reading Train Go Sorry and Hearing Voices and registering for my first Sign Language class. It was a disaster! It was there I learned that from early childhood I had spent my life looking at people’s lips when they spoke (I always needed to have conversations face to face) and had unknowingly used lip reading my whole life to better understand what I was hearing. It’s completely unconscious and if you asked me what was said without sound I couldn’t tell you. Now of course in Sign Language looking at someone forming words is a component of that, but I was unable to simultaneously tear myself away from watching their lips and watching them sign. On top of this all, another childhood disability rose its evil head. I was well on my way to becoming left handed as a child, but my mom, as an elementary teacher and knowing how hard it was for Lefties, instead did everything to encourage me to be right handed and trained me to use that as my dominant hand. I turned out right handed, but also horribly dyslexic, especially regarding left and right, which continually tripped me up. I was perfect in theatre, as stage left and right I could relax and just follow my natural inclination and hit it perfectly. Unfortunately, it added another layer of complication for me in signing, when the left hand was to do one thing one thing and the right another, I was struggling on each hand landing on the right movements. I was just too defeated by these complications and pulled out of the class and ended any idea of going into deaf education. Ironically, a few years later I would work at a prominent children’s hospital (my special education degree was for children in hospitals) and they would be the hospital of record to release a multitude longitudinal study that said having Otitis Media, basically middle ear earaches and what I had suffered from, has no negative impact on a child’s development. Well, wasn’t that ironic, here I was a walking example 35 years later that having extensive Otitis Media as a young child did impact development, the only means by which this might have become true was with early intervention, but I think the social impact issue of that must not have been completely interpreted as such, as I had seen that for myself just a few years earlier.

[@HannahsBooks]

What a powerful story, and what an important reminder that how we treat our children matters. What a gift it must be for the young people you worked with to have someone who had experienced some of what they were experiencing. Thank you so much for sharing this story. One reason I enjoy booktube so much is that I love the combination of speakers looking straight at the camera (usually without background sound) and the fact that even auto-captions are pretty good now (especially with the support of spoken words).

[@LaurieInTexas]

What a wonderful tag! Your responses were so interesting. I recently read Late Migrations and I can understand how that was a thoughtful book to read to David during his last days. I hope your reread brings back good memories.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much, Laurie. It was such a lovely book to read right then.

[@anotherbibliophilereads]

I’m digging all the versions of this tag.

[@HannahsBooks]

I'm looking forward to watching yours! This tag really get people talking about themselves, which I love to watch.

[@anotherbibliophilereads]

@@HannahsBooks Mine posted this morning. Too long but I have been to a lot of places.

[@HannahsBooks]

@anotherbibliophilereads I saw! On my list for this evening!

[@BookTimewithElvis]

How wonderful Hannah. Thank you so much for the tag I shall give it a go :)

[@HannahsBooks]

Wonderful! I can’t wait to see your version!

[@EntertheBook]

Great tag! What great stories and to have a Hannah’s Nancy collection is epic! How cool your father had his own book. Love all the connections to books you have with David- that sounds like a perfect way to mark the anniversary. Hugs to you as you mourn.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so very much for your support. I appreciate it.

[@TriumphalReads]

Acadia and Mount Desert Island really are a special place. And you are correct, even if I never "lived" there, it's going to be included haha. I'm glad you found it a comforting place when you went. I'll have to see what I can come up with for this tag for places I've actually lived in. Great vid Hannah

[@HannahsBooks]

Thanks, Justin. I'm looking forward to hearing what you talk about!

[@Cobaltdragon]

Nancy Drew was a great series 👍Really enjoyed your responses and video. First anniversaries after loosing a loved one are challenging, take good care of yourself.

[@HannahsBooks]

@@Cobaltdragon Thank you so much, Elaine. Today was the anniversary of David’s death and I spent some time alone and some time with old friends. We shared wonderful memories. ♥️

[@Cobaltdragon]

@@HannahsBooks it is those beautiful memories and friends that make the journey forward possible. Glad you had both.

[@MarilynMayaMendoza]

Hello Hannah, thank you so much for the shout out and kind words about my version of this very creative tag. I love your version too. I learned so much about the Carolinas from you. Sending much love and aloha your way.

[@HannahsBooks]

Isn't this a wonderful tag? I love how it gets booktubers to tell stories about places and times that were important to them, and I really enjoy that.

[@sandramiele1816]

This is such a loving video. Thank you so much for sharing. As always, I learned a lot watching you. 🙏

[@HannahsBooks]

That is so kind of you, Sandra. Thank you.

[@literarylove123]

What a beautiful book tag!

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you very much!

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

Oh Hannah, I love everything about this video and your wonderful responses to this tag. I knew that this was going to be a perfect tag for you. Thank you for such a thoughtful and moving response. You just never disappoint. There are so many things in this video that I want to respond to, and I know I won't be able to get to them all here in this little comment. I love the collection of "Hannah's Nancies" still in your elementary school library. I love that your mother was a high school English teacher and that you always had access to her books years before you were in high school yourself. I, too, once loved the works of Gail Godwin. In fact, when you said her name, I went on a search for The Finishing School, which was a very powerful reading experience for me that I'll tell you about some other time. I'm in awe of the fact that you were learning to sign and educating yourself on deaf culture as you were about to start teaching at a university for the deaf. You never cease to amaze me. And, finally, my heart was in my throat when you talked about Late Migrations. I'm looking across my living room right now, and I see it on the shelf directly in my view. I will read some parts of it this summer, too, in honor of David and with profound respect and affection for you. Thank you for doing this tag, my friend.

[@HannahsBooks]

Thank you so much, Pat. It is indeed a perfect tag for me--to answer but also to watch. I love watching people tell stories about places they've lived and times they have lived through. Your comment is so incredibly kind. I have known very few people who have been real Godwin readers! I look forward to hearing about your experiences with her work! I'll tell you my connection with her some other time... And thank you so much for your kind words about David, too.

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

@@HannahsBooks and thank you for this lovely response. You are featured in the tag I posted today, and not just as a person I tagged. 😊

[@robertmueller2023]

Everybody's dream ... a platform in the rural woodlands. Traveling/tourism sucks in the age of Zoom and high-def webcams.

[@HannahsBooks]

Are you referring to the old cabin in Maine?