Yup. It’s that time. Vacation’s over.

Lesson plans done? Check.

Coffee’s ready? Check.

Cell phone alarm turned on for 5:55 AM? Check.

Looks like I’m ready to head back to school. I’m looking forward to getting back in the building and working – but vacation sure was nice. It really makes me yearn for those relaxed college days, when you could actually sleep in until the sun came up.

Winter Vacation Reading

In other news, I just finished reading The Long Road Home by Martha Raddatz. The book tells the story of one of the turning points in the Iraq War – the rise of the insurgency in Sadr City. Specifically, Raddatz tells the tale of a platoon that gets cut off and pinned down in Sadr City and the messy rescue mission conducted by the rest of the division.

It’s a great book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I plan on using some excerpts from it in class to help students visualize and examine what war is like – there are some great descriptive scenes.

When I purchased the book, I’d read some other reviewers that compared it to Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and in this respect I was disappointed. Herr’s narrative of his adventure in Vietnam as a journalist is excellent. I think what disappointed me about The Long Road Home is that Raddatz wasn’t there – she learned of the story after the fact and reconstructed it from interviews and research. There’s something more compelling (although less accessible to high school students, I think) about Herr’s personal experiences in Dispatches.

Those are just some initial thoughts. It was a great book, even if it didn’t live up to some expectations. Later in the week, I plan on writing a more thorough review, highlighting some of the more cogent parts of the book – descriptive passages, the politics of war, the impact of 21st century technology on war, and some other points.