Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 14

Review: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m giving this one the benefit of the doubt. I think it’ll grow into the 3-star review as I mull it over. For the moment, it’s more like a 2 because the ending really does blow.

This is a coming-of-age story with a heavy emphasis on the theme of isolation and loneliness, as Edgar is born mute and unable to communicate the way most people would. He is the third generation of Sawtelle men to be involved in the family dog...

My Indie Publishing Rebirth

Sometime back Facebook’s Timehop feature showed me I’d posted about how many words I’d written that day on a young adult novel called Afterlife. The original post was four years old. I reposted it with a caption about how the book still wasn’t sold.

Harvey Stanbrough, the man who once accepted my novella Inheritance for his StoneThread Publishing company (then returned it because he stopped publishing other authors), commented about how that’s four years Afterlife could have been making money...

Thoughts on Turning 50

I’ve joked for a while about “turning fiddy” and then today it really happened. My odometer of life rolled over the half-century mark. A feeling of depression started to settle over me yesterday, and I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.

But I did. And I went to school. And magic happened.

If you’ve never been a teacher it’s hard to explain something like this. It’s hard for most people to understand how the acts of a group of teenagers can mean so much. Many people would strug...

Teacher Asks for Books

As the fallout continues from the incompetence of the Oklahoma legislature, next school year is starting to come into focus, and trust me, it isn’t pretty. The budget cuts to education are going to be very costly to students and to the teachers who remain in the profession, or are able to keep their jobs.

With 10 years at my school, I’m pretty safe. But we’re looking at much larger class sizes and an emphasis on saving money anywhere we can, which will undoubtedly include paper rationing. Thi...

Review: Earth Abides

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read a lot of hype about this book before committing to it and so I had pretty high expectations. And for a while I thought it might live up to it. But in the end, no, it didn’t.

The story begins with Isherwood Williams (Ish), a college student who aspires to be a professor of anthropology, hiking in the mountains. He’s bitten by a rattlesnake, but makes it back to a cabin, where he treats himself. He gets sick, though. When he rec...

Kids in Need Won’t Find Help

When I was a high school student in the early 1980s I couldn’t have imagined having police officers or Department of Human Services social workers in the building. Now that I teach high school, I can’t imagine doing without them.

But it’s happening.

I’ve already discussed here how we’re down to one officer for our high school, 9th grade center, middle school, and alternative school (about 1,300 students). I’ve since learned he also covers the elementary school just north of our campus, too. T...

Review: The Pastures of Heaven

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While The Pastures of Heaven, John Steinbeck’s second book, was leaps and bounds ahead of his debut, Cup of Gold, it still fell short compared to the masterpieces he would produce in his life.

There were places where his potential blazes off the page. These are mostly in his descriptions of the valley or the people who live in it. When it comes to action or dialogue scenes, the writing is still often awkward and overblown, som...

Review: The Wild Inside

The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not usually a fan of the police procedural, but the wilderness aspect of this one intrigued me. I’m not at all sorry I read it.

Ted Systead listened to the sounds of his father being dragged away and mauled by a grizzly bear while on a camping trip in Glacier National Forest in 1987. Now, some 25 years later and a special agent who investigates crimes committed in the national parks, Systead returns to Glacier to investigate a c...

Letter to OK Senate and House

I’m actually getting kind of tired of writing only about education issues. It’s Spring Break. I should be writing fun stuff. But the fight continues, and the Oklahoma Legislature seems determined to end public education.

Here’s the text of a letter I just sent to Sen. Anthony Sykes and Rep. Paul Wesselhoft. Very likely it will do as much good as farting at a tornado, but I had to try.

Sen. Sykes and Rep. Wesselhoft,

I am sorry I was unable to visit with either of you today when I was at the C...

OK Children to be Taught by Convicts

If you think the title for this post is pure hyperbole, you haven’t read Senate Bill 1187 closely enough. Among the atrocious things this piece of legislation — passed by the Oklahoma Senate 25-20 on Thursday — does is remove the requirement for school districts to hire certified teachers or do background checks on the “adjunct” teachers they hire.

So yes, it is totally possible that your kindergartners could soon be learning the ABC’s from a convicted drug fiend. Your high school daughter co...