My favorite story of the weekend, possibly the year so far...
Mom volunteers in my niece's kindergarten classroom once a week. She taught young-uns for 30+ years, so she does enrichment activities with two of the reading groups in the class.
Well.
Last week, probably as part of
National Read Across America Day, and to commemorate his birthday, Ladybug's class had been studying and reading and listening to Dr. Seuss books.
All week, all Seuss. I'm sure, in the minds of these malleable five- and six-year-olds, the Good Doctor became this wondrous figure -- a man who convorts with Sneetches and cheers the Lorax and brings Horton water while he sits on his egg.
So Mom brings one of her own Seuss books and gathers the whole class around her for story time. She shows them the book. She reads the title. Then she describes how this particular book was tucked away for years and years, and nobody knew about it until someone discovered it...
(...wait for it...)
...AFTER DR. SEUSS HAD DIED.
Twenty kindergarteners rock back, mouths open, brows quivering in confusion.
"What?"
"He
died?"
"When?"
Horton fell off his egg. The Lorax got conked by a falling tree. Sneetches began to waddle quietly backward into the shadows.
Mom mentally kicked herself.
To her rescue came a serious boy, wise beyond his years, who nodded his head. "Yes," he explained, "that's what happens when people get really old and their hearts stop working."
Poor Mom. She'll be the lady who killed Dr. Seuss. :) But when she told me this story, I laughed harder than I've laughed in months. Because it's exactly the sort of thing I imagine myself doing during a future school visit. It's one way to be memorable, I guess!
