I really prefer a pen and paper for writing or a good book I can hold in my hand for reading. For this reason I have been slow to join the blogging world. However, I recently watched the movie "Julie & Julia" and now I am inspired. As Julie wrote of her culinary adventures trying out Julia Child's recipes - I am ready to share my own experiences of story telling in the context of our Growing with Books classes in the Mission District of San Francisco. Thursday, October 8, was the annual "Read for the Record" sponsored by Jumpstart. I was thrilled to learn that this year's book was Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". (I can't for the life of me figure out how to underline text in this blog.) We just happened to have boxes and boxes of apples and pears in our house brought in by my housemates - many with poc-marks from hail damage. These wormlike holes looked curiously familiar and suddenly became my props for the first two days of the very hungry caterpillars eating adventures. He really was at my house, you know, eating right through an apple on Monday, and right through two pears on Tuesday. Where he went to eat through three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges - well I'm not sure, but my mommy and toddler audience seeme intrigued as we read the story of the caterpillar I had met personally.
At the end of this event - including 25 families, books were sent home with families promising to hold their own mini-event with the children in their neighborhood. One comment from a mother sums up why I do what I do: "Now it is our turn to do our part - read at home to our children."
-Dawn Noelle
