What PGS Teachers Are Reading This Summer: VI

The summer holidays are the perfect time to explore new books, writers and ideas. Portsmouth Point asked PGS teachers to reveal what they are going to be reading over this summer. Here, Ms Burden,  Mrs Casillas-Cross, Mrs Kirby, Mrs Burkinshaw and Ms Szmid share their summer selections.

Laura Burden

My first reading project this summer will be to finish The Mirror and the Light (Hilary Mantel). I started reading it in the early days of lockdown and love it but realised I couldn’t give it the attention is deserved. Once I’ve finished that, I plan to move on to Becoming (Michelle Obama), Educated (Tara Westover) and Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens). I am teaching Paradise Lost (John Milton) in September for the first time in fifteen years so I will aim to re-read much of the epic. On a slightly different note, my twin two year olds are currently obsessed with Hairy Maclary but my favourite book to read to them is The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb. It’s that rare thing of being a book for very small children that can be read meaningfully by adults, especially at a time when so many of us have experienced loss: “We’re not gone, oh no, no, no. We’re holding hands and we won’t let go.”

Alex Casillas-Cross

I hope to go beyond the children's books this year (time allowing- although Peace at Last still a daily favourite!) Looking forward to Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston about a woman’s rise from “childhood poverty in rural southern USA to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance” Perhaps some Colson Whitbread and A Woman of Firsts Edna Adan Ismail (who has been called the "Muslim Mother Theresa"). Here’s hoping!

Emma Kirby

I will begin reading the following, thanks to Miss Hart's suggestions: 

Dominicana by Angie Cruz and Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell.

I love Maggie O'Farrell but was disappointed by one her earlier novels I just happen to have read recently (My Lover's Lover) so hoping my faith in her will be restored over the summer. The other was recommended by Miss Hart -  need I say more!?

Stephanie Burkinshaw

Last summer, I read Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls and Madeleine Miller's Circe, which offered fascinating female and feminist perspectives on ancient Greek myths; this has led me to A Thousand Ships by  Natalie Haynes which re-creates the lives of the women, girls and goddesses whose voices have been marginalised, from Briseis to Calliope. Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings intriguingly imagines that Jesus had a wife, examining the implications for religion and culture. My former pupil, Jack Breen, recommended The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which describes the escape of a black slave from a Southern plantation in the nineteenth century; its blending of history and magical-realism sounds fascinating. On the non-fiction front, I am looking forward to Dead Famous by Greg Jenner (historical consultant for Horrible Histories), which chronicles the history of celebrity from the legendary figures of the biblical era to the would-be legends of our own post-modern times. 

Lidia Szmid

This summer, I'm (finally!) going to read Midnight's Children. I forgot I had it until I found my dog trying to chew it yesterday.