Sunday Reflections: Fifth Grade Read-A-Thon

I think this day has come to mind because I'm longing for another one like it...

Mrs. B was probably the most popular of the fifth grade teachers. She was the youngest, the loveliest, and the funniest. She had a Texan drawl and was a ten year old's introduction to adults saying words like, "Duh!" She was very supportive and easily inspired most kids to perform well at their tasks. She also brought one of my favorite young adult books into my life...

(from www.ebooknetworking.com)

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is really an allegory for the English language and mathematics... the two most basic things one learns in grade school. Without falling into review mode, I really do recommend this to anyone, but certainly fifth graders... I can't recall anyone complaining about the book in class or even in line to other classes when Mrs. B was not within earshot. It's not specifically a "boy book" or a "girl book" either, which are among my favorites to suggest since they can be hard to find... I like books that bridge the gender gap and even (Can you imagine?) get kids to talk to one another about what they read.

Anyway, really, it's awesome.

But what has stuck in my mind today is the Read-A-Thon Day that Mrs. B set up. She picked a day and gave us about a week or two to get excited about it. She said we could bring in anything we wanted to read (as long as it was a book/novel) along with our blankets and pillows. She asked us to come to school our PJs... all we were going to do the entire school day was read. There might have been some sort of contest involved... perhaps, if we, collectively, read over a certain number of pages we'd have an ice cream party before the end of the year or something. The day itself was so much fun, I can no longer remember if we won something or not.

I'm sure I was reading something sort of stupid... I remember reading things like Mary Downing Hahn's Wait Til Helen Comes or Louis Sacher's Sideways Stories from Wayside School. I might have been reading Roald Dahl's Matilda again or maybe the beloved Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I know I brought at least five books with me so I could switch for some variety every hour or so.

We never left that room. Mrs. B ordered pizza for us so we wouldn't have to walk downstairs to the cafeteria and disturb our reading. You'd think that a coup would somehow arise with a day spent not studying or doing math... but I can't remember anyone breaking the "reading silence"... you know? The kind of quiet where you can almost hear people thinking? We had lined our desks along the walls and draped blankets, sheets, sleeping bags and whatnot over them to create our own personal reading environments.

It was pure heaven.

I'm thinking I need to indulge in a day like this soon... I won't have a bunch of other people my age around me to do the same thing, but I'll put a dent in a new pile of books I'm trying to read all at once (I get too excited... hard for me to focus on one book at a time).

Maybe I'll camp out under the table with Minerva...