Bookshelf - Day 77

For Christmas my brother bought me the amazing book For The Love Of Horses written by Kelly Wilson of the Wilson Sisters from New Zealand. I have previously mentioned that I have watched the documentary on Horse and country TV (Keeping up with the Kaimanawas) of their lives growing up around horses and run holiday camps for young equestrians - something J would like to do.

I haven't finished it yet - life gets in the way of reading sometimes. Here is a pic of me, as a unicorn, reading about the real life unicorns.

I tend to pick up a book while I already have a book on the go. On my bedside table I usually have two or three books half read. I am currently reading another book alongside For the Love of Horses called Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims.

It's hilariously relatable.

Gill puts down on paper the day to day parenting disasters that can occur all before 9am.

A friend once helped me have a declutter and asked me why I didn't just throw out the books I have read. I said how they hold memories for me and I sometimes re-read them.

Books are a great discussion point between J and I and guests.

This is how I organise my bookshelf - Subject order followed by height order.

I have my religious books and languages on the first shelf is underneath my science and literacy books.

There is a shelf dedicated to equitation including my BHS Level books (The British Horse Society pathways training), jumping exercises, autobiographies and some novels J and I share. He has an entire shelf in his bedroom filled with horse stories.

Fittingly next to those I have all my theoretical books on learning difficulties  which I used as references for my SEN essay during my PGCE.

I would love to develop my understanding and training within special educational needs and how animal therapy - in particular equine therapy - can assist/aid young individuals living with additional needs.

Since J started riding in Sept 2017 he has improved academically by 6 months meaning he is now only a year behind the age related expectations of his peers. I don't recall what triggered this improvement but school and I can only can only pin point the progress from monitoring around the time which he began riding.

It will be interesting to see how he has improved since having tutoring twice a week and having B.

What is it about animals, horses in particular, which help humans heal? I would like to look into becoming an equine therapy handler if there is such a thing. Once I am teaching full time again I will see what courses are available. B seems to understand when J is struggling. Especially when he gets upset. If J pursues riding maybe B could be a therapy pony when J rides horses.

I watched an amazing psychological thriller series on Netflix called YOU where a serial murderer kills for love - I'm surmising of course. When he meets Beck, an aspiring writer, in the bookshop he works in, there are several hidden literary references between them.

It made me want to set the challenge to read all the books mentioned in the series. This is the list I've compiled thus far:

1. Desperate Characters - Paula Fox
2. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
3. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger
4. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
5. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
6. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
7. Sleeping Beauties - Stephen King, Owen King
8. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
9. Ozma of Oz - L. Frank Baum
10. The Alienist - Caleb Carr
11. The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
12. Middlemarch - George Elliot
13. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
14. Whom The Bell Tolls - Earnest Hemmingway
15. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
16. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
17. On Beauty - Zadie Smith

It's an impressive list!

Have you read any of them? or ever witnessed equine therapy in action?

KJB
xxx