Reading at Barre City Elementary School on November 14, 2017

Debby Gale did a stellar job organizing 28 readers to read for the K-4 classes at Barre Town Elementary School! Their wonderful principal, James Taffel, welcomed us and took this photograph of the group before people headed out to their classrooms.

Because so much was going on in a short period of time, we're unable to describe the activities readers did in their various classrooms, but we can tell you that it was a very busy morning! Here are a few images from the classrooms:

Above: Ellen Halperin and Barbara Bendix in a combined third grade classroom.

Above: Kevin Chu reads in a first grade classroom.

Some of our photographs of individual readers and their books didn't turn out, but this is a good sampling of the wonderful people who read, and their books:

Sally Hobart, The Other Side

Manny Tejeda, All the Colors of the Earth

Marilyn May, Testing the Ice

Liz Hamlin-Volz, Teammates

Rachel Cogbill, Jackie's Bat

Janet Westervelt, Black is Brown

Debby Gale, Skin Again

Kevin Chu, Teammates

Abigail Stockman, Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later)

Beth Ann Maier, Sneetches

Charlotte Faulstick, Navajo Long Walk

Barbara Bendix and Ellen Halperin, Henry Aaron's Dream

Cynthia Ross, My Name is Sangoel

Ellen Bresler, Lucia the Luchadora and Cherries and Cherry Pits

Georgia Landau, Across the Alley

Irina Markova, My Name is Yoon

Jean Jersey, This is the Dream

Shana Margolin, Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues

Nate Ball, Say Something

Becky Bowen, Let's Talk About Ruby Bridges

The Book Table at Rumney, October 26, 2017

Students always enjoy browsing through our books before the readings begin!

Paul Erlbaum Reads "Sneetches"

Paul Erlbaum read Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches to a kindergarten class at Rumney. You can see a similar reading he did, and the way he engaged the class here.

Ellen Halperin Reads "The Bracelet"

You can see another post about Ellen's reading of The Bracelet here.

Joseph Gainza Reads "Jackie's Bat"

Narrated by the Brooklyn Dodgers' white batboy, Joey, Lorbiecki's (Sister Anne's Hands ) heartwarming tale set in 1947 tells two parallel stories. The first is Jackie Robinson's difficult but ultimately triumphant first season in the major leagues, and the other is Joey's challenging, but also triumphant, battle against his own racism. With understated simplicity, Joey recounts the numerous indignities Robinson endures: taunts from opposing teams, pitchers aiming at him, hate mail, separate hotels and some insults inflicted by the batboy himself (e.g., Joey cleans the shoes of every player except Robinson because, the boy thinks to himself, "Pops says it ain't right,/ a white boy serving a black man"). Robinson confronts Joey: "There's people out there who don't/ treat me as a man 'cause my skin is black/.... They don't know what a man is." Joey chronicles Robinson's gradual progression from outsider to "one of the guys" as his teammates start defending and working with him. The final scenes depict Robinson offering Joey his hand to shake, "one Dodger to another," and Pops wearing an "I'm for Jackie" button, saying, "That man's earned his place in history." These moments give added emotional weight to this straightforward but often moving re-imagining of how an American hero's struggle and achievement helped transform a nation.

In introducing the book, Joseph tells that he grew up in Brooklyn and loved the Dodgers. But a more important story was about Joseph's own father, who worked on the docks. In his first job, unloading ballast from a big ship, he was part of a long line of men who handed the rough ballast stones hand over hand from the ship's hold, up the stairs, and onto the dock. Joseph's father worked next to an older African-American man, who had a worn and torn pair of gloves on his hands, while Joseph's father's hands were getting all ripped up. At a pause in the movement of stones, the man drew out a pair of new gloves from his back pocket and said to Joseph's father, "Here, son, wear these." Joseph's father said he couldn't take the man's new gloves, but he insisted. Joseph said his father never forgot that, and he never heard his father say anything derogatory about black people, and their home was one in which all people were respected. What Joseph drew from this experience is that a small act of kindness can have huge consequences.

Georgia Landau Reads "My Name is Bilal"

A young boy wrestles with his Muslim identity in this picture book for children written by Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin, with illustrations by Barbara Kiwak.

When Bilal and his sister Ayesha move with their family, they have to attend a new school. They soon find out that they may be the only Muslim students there. When Bilal sees his sister bullied on their first day, he worries about being teased himself, and thinks it might be best if his classmates didn’t know that he is Muslim. Maybe if he tells kids his name is Bill, rather than Bilal, then they would leave him alone. Mr. Ali, one of Bilal's teachers and also Muslim, sees how Bilal is struggling. He gives Bilal a book about the first person to give the call to prayer during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. That person was another Bilal: Bilal Ibn Rabah. What Bilal learns from the book forms the compelling story of a young boy grappling with his identity. (Summary from goodreads)

Rachel Cogbill Reads "Amazing Grace"

Rachel read Amazing Grace to the kindergarten. (See here for a description of the book). Rachel's summary:

Grace wants to be Peter Pan in the class play, but one classmate says she can't be because Peter Pan is a boy, and another says she can't be Peter Pan because she is black. Her Nana says Grace can be anything she puts her mind to, and in the end her classmates agree! The play is a great success!

We believe it is essential to provide children with diverse role models, in terms of skin color, cultural heritage, ability, national origin, etc. This book is a lovely example of this perspective.

Activity: Rachel created a booklet with an image of the book's cover on the front, the name of the class, and a line stating "Read aloud during the Reading to End Racism Day."  Inside the booklet, it said "Grace can be anything she wants to be, and so can I!" There was a page for each student to draw a picture and write what he or she wanted to be. This boy wanted to be a baker! This activity provides a great little brochure that students can take home to talk with their families about.

Bob Fisher Reads "Teammates"

Bob Fisher read Teammates to a 5-6  class. In an introduction to his reading, Bob told two personal stories about why he cares about racism and its effects. He said that when he was in high school, his girlfriend was African-American. Her father was a postal worker and a diabetic. One day he had a diabetic crisis, and went to the hospital for treatment, but collapsed inside. The hospital staff left him on the floor, assuming that he was drunk. He didn't receive treatment, and he died.

He also told that someone in his neighborhood had a bottle of wine stolen, and Bob was accused of the theft because of his inter-racial relationship, which was regarded as suspect and anti-social. These are the effects of prejudice and stereotyping.

Susan Wilson Reads Two Books About Shoes to Grades 1-2

Susan Wilson read Those Shoes and New Shoes (see previous post here for similar reading) .


Here a student traces around her foot before writing her list of Wants and Needs.

Amazingly, as we left the room, there was a photograph on the door of a group of African youngsters sitting in a circle with NO shoes on, creating a wonderful design with their feet!