I read to the first grade in two different classes. May I say I haven't had that much fun in I don't know when!
I made sure each child had a book to hold, telling them if they took really good care of the book, I'd give them a little surprise at the end of class. Needless to say, the books came back as good as new.
I loved watching them as I read. Their little heads were bowed, their pointer fingers following rapidly, underlining each word as I read it.
After I finished the story, we went back to the front of the book and talked about some of the bigger words. (This is a middle school book, because of bigger words and symbolism) We talked about the significance of some of the pictures.
These kids asked some really intelligent questions. One little girl asked how did we get the pages inside the book? I explained that a machine did it, not us. But it gave me the opportunity to talk about the process of creating a picture book. They listened intently.
We talked about the reasons Crow has a tear on his face at one point in the story. You could tell how they identified with the boy in the story, and his goodness. You could see the alarm in their faces that the snake could have eaten Crow when he was a baby and had fallen from the nest. You could see them put themselves in the boy's place when he was saving Crow and putting him back in the nest.
The last class thanked us, and wanted to give Husband pictures they had drawn.
One little boy came up to me, solemn faced and said. "Thank you." I asked him did he want to write a story someday, and he said yes, but he couldn't write it yet. I said for him to keep using his imagination, and in a short time he could start writing them down. I told him I wasn't able to write a short story until I was in fifth grade, because it got easier for me to write down my ideas then. He nodded his head, as serious as ever.
But the funniest thing that happened was at the end of the second class. I was handing out "The Crow and The Wind" bookmarks, (their surprise) for them to take home. For some reason, one of the bookmarks had my name and telephone number written on the back. The little girl to whom it was handed brought it back, a frown on her face.
I apologized and told her I'd swap it for a "clean" one. One of the little boys was watching and stepped up. Eagerly, he said he'd swap with her, he wanted that one.
Suddenly the one with my name and number became a hot item, and she decided to keep it.
As we chatted with the adults in the room before we left, a strange thing took place.
We looked at the suddenly quiet children. They all were at their tables, bookmarks turned over, each child carefully copying down my name and phone number on the back of their bookmarks.
My brother suggested there would be a suspicious parent wanting to know what their child was doing with some stranger's name and number on the back of a bookmark.
I imagined the GBI showing up with a Fox 5 camera behind them.
"Well, hey, Head of GBI," I would say, "Is your wife (my friend) with you? No? Um, say, what's the TV camera doing behind you?"
Well, that didn't happen.
I didn't get any phone calls either.
Maybe tonight.
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