Roots

I shared a room with my sister for my entire childhood. We knew that books were important to my parents so we quickly grew wise to the "one more story" ploy to delay bedtime. Incidentally, there were several "5 Minute Bedtime Stories" among our literary collection. My favorite was one about a little girl who saves up her pennies to purchase a glass bird for her grandmother (I'll have to ask my mom about that one!).

My second grade teacher, Mrs. Sherman, had the best posture of anyone I had met. She wore a long, heavy skirt in red or blue, and a crisp button-down shirt with stripes of the same color. She would put her left arm across her chest and place her right hand at her chin as she looked down at us scurrying down the hall like little second grade mice. She was very strict, but also kind and I learned to love Mrs. Sherman in second grade. She insisted that we maintained proper decorum and keep our desks neat, and for that I was grateful. She told us that we were going to read a very long story called The Wheel on the School by Meindert Dejong. When she produced the actual book, I remember being amazed by its thickness! 329 pages! She read to us everyday and we finished the entire book over the course of the school year. I loved listening to her tell the story of kids, just like us, in a completely foreign place. I thought it was so novel to put a giant wooden wheel atop the school! Looking back, I am not surprised that I loved the book so much. It addresses a scientific problem (the storks are no longer nesting in their town- how can the town get them back?), anthropology (vividly captures the Dutch culture), and conveys the idea that little children can solve big problems.

As a young adolescent, I was obsessed with reading and journaling. Mostly Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roald Dahl, and Avi. Then I moved into the radical young teen poetry phase reading Ginsberg, ee cummings, and Neurda. From there, I spent high school moving through the female authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, and Simone deBeaviour. As a biology undergraduate, my attention turned to reading scholarly journal articles and scientific texts. Reading become more practical and less fun.

Now that I have a son who will be two this summer, my attentions have turned again back to literature for young minds. There is something comforting about returning to the books and stories I remember from my own youth. I'm looking forward to applying the insights gained in this course both at home and in the classroom.