The other day, my sister-in-law (and co-author of “The Big Book of Hugs”, a children’s book we wrote about the power of hugs and kindness) Alison and I went to our local elementary schools to read the book and and talk about it at several assemblies.
Right before the first assembly, we talked to one 1st grader who was quite disappointed when he saw us…
With expectant and quite disappointed eyes, this cute-as-a-button first grader said to us,
“I thought Dr. Seuss was going to be here…”
Hahahahahaha!
Yeah, that’s how our day started at the local elementary schools, as we prepared to read our new kids book, “The Big Book of Hugs”. The assembly was starting and we didn’t have time to explain that no, Dr. Seuss was not going to be there today, and I really didn’t want to be the one to tell this cute kid that Dr. Seuss, was in fact, deceased…
The two elementary schools we were visiting that day were in my hometown of Newtown, CT, site of the Sandy Hook school shootings. When the book was released, I reached out to the local elementary schools and donated a copy of the book to EVERY child in the schools.
Whether or not they were directly affected by the shootings, I know the resonant energy of that pain still lingers and especially affects young kids, so I figured they could use a few extra hugs (who on this planet doesn’t need a few extra hugs?)
Alison (my sister in law and co-author) and I had a wonderful experience. It was quite a change for me, going from speaking to thousands of adults at a time, to 100 eager six-year-olds! Honestly, I was MORE nervous about it than I am when I speak to adults! Haha! Did a little tapping and took care of that…
Here are a few pics of us during the assembly:
For your amusement, here are some of the other questions we got during the day:
Kid: “How long did it take you to write the book?”
Me: “We actually wrote it in about ten months, from start to finish”
Next hand raised…
Kid: “How many minutes did it take you to write the book?”
Me: “Hmm….great question. I don’t know how many minutes, but let’s just say lots and lots”
Next hand raised…
Kid: “How many words are in the book?”
Me: “About 750.”
Kid: “Wow”
Me: “And to give you an idea, I also write adult books, and those books have SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND words”
Kid: Takes hand and smacks it against his forehead. His mind is officially blown by the idea of writing that many words.
Besides sharing the message of the book itself and reading it to the kids, Alison, who is also a first grade teacher, did an amazing job of bringing a powerful lesson into each assembly.
She explained to me that one of the things kids hate doing the most is revising their work. And obviously, they’re not alone; we don’t change much as adults! Who wants to do the boring job of editing, crossing things out, trying out new ideas, and so forth?!
Alison knows that it’s a struggle for her and teachers around the world to convince their kids to edit and revise. That’s why she brilliantly brought multiple versions of the book to the assembly, showing all the different iterations of it, the edits, the cross–out, the different drafts and pictures, and so forth.
They were fascinated by the different steps that had to happen for the book to end up in their hands, and the teachers were quite grateful that now they can say, “You need to edit this just like the famous authors do!”
Even without Dr. Seuss at our side, it was a massively successful day and hopefully that cute kid enjoyed it as well. 🙂
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