Weekly Message from HOS 2026/03/16-2026/03/20

Dear Keystonians,

On my bedside table right now: Jackie Chan’s Never Grow Up, Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Hao Ping’s Sun Yat-sen and America, and a slim poetry collection called Little Mercy. Some I’ll finish. Some I may not. What are you reading? 

Something shifted for me in my 30s. After years of graduate degrees, I declared freedom: I could read what I wanted, not what I should. I stopped finishing books I didn’t love. And I started reading more.  

The foundation of my love for reading came from my parents. In our house, everyone always had a book. A tall rotating bookcase—still in my brother’s house today—was stuffed full. You could spin it and always find something new. That feeling of limitless books shaped me.  

When my daughter was young, no matter how many times we moved, the first thing we set up in her new room was a bookshelf. Sometimes before bed. A life with lots of books is a life with no limits. Our Keystone community is so fortunate that our three school libraries make this possible for all of us. 

This week I was gifted four books written with the support of AI, based on my own writing. They are designed to support my Chinese learning—personalized workbooks to help me talk about my life, about Keystone, about my educational philosophy, about talking with students, all in Chinese. As a language teacher who loves learning, loves reading, loves books, they are the perfect gift. I was moved to tears at the thoughtfulness of the colleague who created them.  

If you love books, I bet you are, like me, enchanted by the idea of writing them. My college roommate and I are co-writing a book—mostly to stay connected across distance. My dad always talked about writing “the great American novel.” Maybe he still will. We have a lot of writers in our community. Maybe you are carrying a story the world needs? Maybe you have already written one book and need a nudge to write the next one?  

This is why I love our Keystone Library challenge: “Write a book the world has never seen.”  

Our three libraries give us endless opportunities to read—we are so lucky. And the real magic happens when our students see themselves as authors, too. I can’t wait to read the stories they will tell. 

What a gift, to be in a community that reads and writes. 

Warmly, 

Emily