03.14.06 Words That Make Us
As part of the National Education Association’s Read Across America program, the pre-school two of my kids go to twice a week for a few hours is having parents read their favorite book to their child’s class.
So this morning I’m off to Mrs.Barbara’s classroom with ”It’s Hard To Be Five” by Jamie Lee Curtis and ”The Peace Book” by Todd Parr in my backpack. These are Gabriella’s favorites though (she’s five). And they’re pretty good. But my favorite books when I first started enjoying to read, somewhere around third grade I think, were poetry books by Shel Silverstein like ”A Light In The Attic” and ”Where The Sidewalk Ends” and his opus tale of sacrificial love ”The Giving Tree.”
I still have parts of his prose memorized. And I can’t help but wonder if what I read way back then had something to do with making me who I am today. And this makes me wonder if reading ”Everybody Poops” and ”The Gas We Pass:The Story Of Farts” to my son every night is really such a good idea.
What words made you?
I liked reading Judy Blume books when I was really young. “tales of a fourth grade nothing” and “superfudge” are two I remember. My wife still laughs at me because I read, “hello God, it’s me Margaret” and had no idea what the book was about until we had, “the sex talk” at school that year.
Another book that I still remember loving was “the Hatchet” by Gary Paulson.
Makes me want to go back and read them again.