When I was a young girl, I loved bridges. My small village in Vietnam was crisscrossed by rivers and streams, and bridges allowed me to cross over to the other side. Of course, they were primitive bridges. Most of the bridges were long trees that were placed from one side of the river to the other side; or ropes that were tied to one strong tree on one side connecting to another tree on the other side.  These bridges were not built with metal or concrete, but they were strong enough for me to cross over to the other side each morning and return in the early evening. 

Here in America, bridges are much bigger, stronger, and more magnificent. Sometimes they are so tall they give me chills as I drive my car on them.  It does not matter where I live, I still think bridges represent something magical and beautiful. Bridges symbolize unity, continuation, and hope. I feel a connection and find these traits when reading Wright’s The Other Side of the Bridge. Wright stated the exact sentiment on page 316 “ …the bridge of magic, the bridge of hope…”

The Golden Gate Bridge is the center. On the east side, Wright placed Dave Riley as a desperate executive searching for hope after an accident took his family away. On the west side, Wright crafted Katie Connelly, a young and hopeless research intern finding magic to move forward with life after the death of her father and betrayal of her fiancé. You would think these two would fall in love and live happily.

Well, maybe in another version, on a different bridge. This is why Wright’s clever craftmanship takes me by surprise. They both found what they were hoping for by racing through the bridge, but not the way I expected. Half-way through the book, I found myself screaming at Wright: “When are you going to let them meet?”  They met alright. But briefly. Unrecognizable like two ships passing through the moonless night on the San Francisco Bay. As I read through the pages, I was hoping for a longer chapter so these two star-crossed people could dig deeper into their connection. However, bridges do not run on forever.

Wright did not focus on despair, lost, hope, or love. He retold realism. Take the Vietnam Memorial for example. I lived in the suburban near Washington D.C. and every chance we get, we would go to D.C. and of course, my favorite site is the Vietnam Memorial. Looking at it from a distance, it is just a wall, concrete, hard, tall. But as I walked closer to it, and run my fingers on it, it is no longer a wall, but sentiments, lost lives, unsung heroes. Emotions would swell inside me. There is magic there at that Memorial. Wright described the exact sentiment in the voice of Redd and Dave. I wonder how many times he had been there and feel the wall.

In our lives, there are walls that separated us. Then there are bridges that connected us. I invite you to read The Other Side of The Bridge and find those connections.

It was the first day of school for my daughter. She came home excitedly announced that she had the same teacher as in third grade, and 13 out of 22 students were in third grade last year.  “And who are the other students,” I asked.

She tried to remember their names and whose classes they were from.

“But mommy,” she said. “I don’t think I am in a smart class because there are kids with aides in my class.”

She clarified that her class had three kids with aides. They were autistic students who needed more help in keeping calm and paying attention in the class.

One student occasionally yelled out in the class.

They sat in the back of the classroom with their aides, trying to be invisible to the class.

“What makes you think autistic students are not smart?”

She shrugged her shoulder.

I thought this is a good opportunity for her to learn more about Autism and autistic friends.

We picked up the book Rain Reign.

We read it together.

At first, it was not holding her interest. But as we read deeper into the book, and as she spent more days with her autistic classmates, she could relate to the story, and she showed more interest in it. She wanted to finish the book the next day, but we decided to read it slowly and learn more about events in the book.

Rain Reign could not have come at a perfect time.

We learned more about high functioning autism, which was the diagnosis of Rose, the main character in the story.

When we read the part where Rose got upset and started crying: when she observed the cars did not follow the rules (p. 35), and when Josh did not follow the grammar rule ( 41-42). My daughter thought back of her classmates. She understood why Adam shouted out in the class, why Jean cried for ‘nothing’ which was for something, and why Kaily just bounced back and forth.

We looked up Hurricane Susan, which was mentioned in the story, and found it happened in 1958 and 1969, which probably was not the one in the story. Only we reached the end, we found out it was indeed hurricane Irene that inspired the story. We read more about Hurricane Irene and its destruction.

We reviewed prime and composite numbers (These are common core standards!)

We had our lessons on homophones, homographs, antonyms, and synonyms. We did not make the list like Rose, but we ended up with the poster of these colloquialisms.

The book did nothing for me if I was to read it by myself. But reading it with my daughter and turning it into teachable moments made it absolutely meaningful.

The most meaningful thing my daughter learned that we could be identified as autistic and still be smart. “Mommy,” she said, “Adam is very smart with the computer.” She was able to look past the labeling and recognize their true smarts. We all have our talents.

Every morning we wake up, not everyone but I sure do, we scroll thru Facebook and read quick updates about friends and family.  Between all the pictures of kids playing and news reports, I saw one of a book cover. My friend was invited to post on Facebook each day for seven days a little bit about a book that inspired her to start reading or has made an impact on her life.  I thought this was a wonderful idea and loved that each day you could challenge a friend to join. This may sound like one of those annoying posts that clutter your feed, but to me, it was a peek into my friends’ bookcase and a little note about why that book still sits on the shelve all these years.

I was finally challenged and was already prepared with a book. I was about to post and then realized something- that the more I thought about it, the book I picked was something that was an important book, but it wasn’t the book that inspired me to read.

I sat on my bed, with my phone on my lap and took a little moment to search all my memories of when I had time to sit back and read a good book. I can tell you it’s not many, as a mother of two very active boys, I get to read but not as much as I would really like. Then it hit me, that moment when I laughed, cried and learned all at the same time. The first book that actually made me want to keep exploring the world of paper and typed words.

I’m only on day 4 of this challenge and I have been loving looking back and remembering the wonderful stories that those books have brought to my life.  Many that I would love to read again and to bring back that feeling they bring by only looking at the covers.

Here is the post on my Facebook- and I challenge everyone who is inspired to copy and share their love of books with everyone!

Day 1/7 Book Challenge 📚 📖 (I was challenged by Lille Marie Arosemena )
For the next week, I will be posting the cover of books that I’ve enjoyed along with a little bit about why I love them so much.

In addition to that, I will be inviting a friend to join the challenge on a daily basis. To those who are up to the challenge, please post the cover from one of your favorite books each day. Whether you wish to include an explanation or not is up to you.