Holler if the Gator Moves
By Jessica Sadler
Thank you for joining us at the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler. I can usually be found in a secondary science classroom, but I am currently a Teacher Professional Development Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Florida by Lauren Groff.
This work is a collection of 11 interconnected short stories that are heavily character driven and relate around… you guessed it, Florida. This book has been selected to explore the 2026 Fall Readers Theme- Wind and Weather.
One theme I felt strongly in the book is the idea of the untamed landscapes of Florida. When I was about 10, I took my first flight to Tallahassee because my dad was doing a directional drilling job in Florida. They were completing a part of a job under the blackest swamp water I’d ever seen at that point. Someone needed to be able to use the locator across the water to make sure the pipe was following the correct path. My dad put me on this pedestrian bridge as a lookout.
What was my job, you ask? To watch the gators sunning on the bank while one of the guys working for my dad went across the water in an inflatable raft with the locator. If I saw any of them move, I was supposed to, “holler as loud as you can!” Being a middle school science teacher I have had some WONDERFUL students cross my path, but nary a one would I trust to be my lookout in this situation if I were in that raft.
I also really found myself resonating with the “Ghosts and Empties” piece from this collection. You are following a writer’s ghost; a mother and her two children. You come to learn that the ghost is thoughts and memories of the writer’s past while she is taking long walks on the beaches at night. The writer opens her story by saying “I have somehow become a woman who yells.”
I found that line beautifully haunting. I think, especially for women, labors of life and possibly providing care fundamentally change things about your personality. What once may have been no big deal becomes a “minor” tally on a paper quickly filling up.
I often consider who I was the first year I started working in education compared to my 15th. I am still passionate about the work and love my students, but I have less doe to my eyes and more opinions when it comes to policy and decision making.
This short story has a universal line for anyone providing care for others and reflecting on their life in tandem.
Florida is a state that has a sense of nuance to the rest of the forty-nine. I’ve spent a fair bit of time there, and have still succumbed to googling “Florida resident” and seeing what pops up in the news. After engaging with this book, I also remember that it is a place of resilience, intelligence for a different way of life, and has a pulse all its own. This is Jessica Sadler, and you are listening to the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club.
Jessica Sadler has taught third, fifth, and sixth grades in Lawrence and Olathe Kansas, holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and special education. A STEAM facilitator with an ESL endorsement, Jessica has won numerous teaching awards, includingThe Spirit of Education Award and being named Kansas Asia Scholar and 2013 Best Teacher in Lawrence. She has served as a volleyball coach and was nominated as Kansas Teacher of the Year in 2019-20. Jessica is currently a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Teacher Innovator.What her awards do not highlight is the fact that Jessica is an avid and enthusiastic reader and we are happy to have her join us for the 2026 Fall Read.
