About Sayuri

My Top Ten Favorite Things (and their rather lengthy descriptions)

Here is a list (“list” is probably an understatement for the following piece of writing… sorry about that) of some of my favorite things. How many of these would make it to your own Top Ten List?

1. As a lifelong horse girl, horses are my favorite animal. (That was short and sweet! Go me! But, as you’ll learn shortly, I was just warming up.)
2. Probably because they remind me most of nature, green and blue are my favorite colors. (I live in the city but crave water and trees as much as possible. I’ll take a beach, lake or mountain trail pretty much any day of the week if they’ll have me!)
3. No cake, sugar, or waffle cone would be complete without my favorite dessert of all time: mint chip ice cream. If pressed for specifics, I prefer the creamier green variety over the spicier white variety, though I won’t say “no” to white mint if that’s all that’s on the menu. (And yes, I use mint flavored toothpaste and find zero problems eating one minty item, then later on in the evening, brushing with and rinsing out another.)
4. Now, I would never eat this with mint chip ice cream, but I’m also a peanut butter person. Peanut butter is, knives down, my favorite condiment. I love peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and honey, and peanut butter banana sandwiches. (And as long as we’re on the topic, I prefer smooth to chunky, but I’m really not that picky about my peanuts.)
5. Though I could survive for a very long time on just ice cream and sandwiches, there is one other dish that is absolutely a Top Ten Meal for me: Zaru Soba. I grew up eating this cold, highly slurpable, noodle dish with my mom and the rest of my Japanese family every summer. (Zaru Soba is a bowl full of cool, salty, sweet, and sometimes spicy, comfort that is wonderfully noisy to eat. Nothing better.)
6. Since this Top Ten list is not only about food, I’ll move on to another set of favorites: books. Even from before I learned to read, books have played a huge role in my life. Most of my favorite childhood books featured settings that were nothing like my childhood home in South Pasadena, California. As a kid, I loved Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and countless other books that took place in historical or fantastical places and focused a lot on themes like survival, kindness, overcoming hardship, or saving the world. (As a horse girl, however, I also devoured any horse book that came my way, from anything and everything written by Marguerite Henry to The Saddle Club by Bonnie Bryant and The Thoroughbred Series by Joanna Campbell.)
7. To this day, I am still entranced by vivid settings and rich themes. Some of my favorite books for kids that have been written more recently include Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani, The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, The Vanderbeekers of 141^st Street by Karina Yan Glaser, Wonder by RJ Palacio, and so many others. (And as a middle school teacher, my favorite thing to do is to match readers with books, so my list of beloved chapter book, middle grade and young adult titles is endless!)
8. While reading provides an incredible escape, one of my other Top Ten Favorite Activities is traveling. Although I travel less now that I’m a teacher and a mom, I still fondly remember all of my international adventures. Someday, I would love to tell you all about horseback riding across Ireland, camping on a beach in Mexico, trekking in Tibet, paragliding in Ecuador, teaching teachers in India and visiting my father’s ancestral home in Poland. The crazy thing about traveling is that visiting one new place often makes you want to visit more, so I can’t wait to keep traveling… and to take my family with me! (I have a long list of places I want to visit ASAP and near the top are several wildly different places: Japan, Costa Rica, and Italy. I hope to report back with all kinds of stories from these and other countries one day soon!)
9. In addition to being an eater, a reader, a writer, a traveler, and a horse girl, I am also a nature-lover. On a list of my Top Ten Favorite Non-Animal Living Things, strong, stalwart redwood trees from the California coast and firey red maple trees in autumn would be tops. Also a favorite: wildflowers and all of the colors they paint across a landscape in the spring and summer. (Fun Flower Fact: My name—Sayuri—means “Little Lily” in Japanese. Another Fun Flower Fact: My grandmother was also supposed to be named after a flower (an iris) but because of her own mother’s Japanese accent, she ended up with the name Alice on her birth certificate! More on that story later…)
10. And for number ten on my list of Top Ten Favorite Things in My Life, when I’m not reading, writing, teaching, or traveling, my favorite thing to do is to spend time with my family. In New York City, there is an endless supply of cultural and outdoor activities for us to do, like sledding in Fort Tryon or Central Park, swimming at the neighborhood pool, visiting a favorite museum like The Met or The American Museum of Natural History, checking out books from The New York Public Library, or just playing in a local playground with friends and neighbors, new and old. (And as you’ll see as you get to know me and my books, so much of my writing comes from adventures and special moments—big and small—with my family all over New York, California and the world!)