Lily, and some young readers, take the Read Across America Pledge on WRC-TV in Washington:
Read Across America
Right on Target
Josh is eight years old in third grade in his public school here in fabulous New York City. He thinks I look like a desperate housewife.
I don’t watch the show, so I have no idea if that’s a compliment or not. But he came to the New York Public Library’s kick-off event for sponsored by our faithful partner, , and he was told he was going to see movie stars.
NEA's Read Across America Launch Event at the New York Public Library (AP)
He met (an actor up for an Academy Award and an ardent activist for clean water who passionately read The Lorax to Josh and about 200 of his school mates). He met , an actor who faithfully reads her children to sleep.
He met rap artists and singers and authors who have large followings of fans. So when he saw me, he ran up to me and said with eyes shining, “I know I’ve seen you on TV! What’s your show?”
I said, “If you guess right, I’ll tell you.”
Read Across to Reach Across
Lily sharing "Where the Wild Things Are" as part of NEA's Read Across America
James was not confused. He was mad. At me.
“We’re not lucky!” he pouted. “We live in a homeless shelter don’tcha know!”
Second graders are old enough to know where they live. They know they don’t have a house or an apartment like they used to. In my shelter school class there were anywhere from five to fifteen kids on any given day. These were the kids whose parents wouldn’t allow them to attend the “regular” school down the street, usually because someone was looking for them. An abusive spouse or a loan shark or a drug dealer.
And I had just called them lucky.
I had just said, “A lot of very nice people do some very nice things for our school. And now it’s time for us to do something for kids who aren’t as lucky as you are.”