Storytime Monday

It was storytime Monday again today. Since school will be out next Monday for Martin Luther Kings' birthday and then on Tuesday for the inauguration, I wanted to read books that featured these men. But I was hesitant. A bad man shot Martin Luther King, and I hated to be the one to break that piece of information to children only three to six years old. And the few children's books that have been published about President-Elect Obama are a bit too "inspirational" for my taste. I tried to talk myself into reading some nice happy fiction books and letting the classroom teachers deal with the task of teaching the significance of these two days. In the end, however, I knew I wouldn't be happy if I let these holidays pass by without including them in storytime.

After a great deal of browsing at the local area bookstore I choose Barack Obama; Son of Promise, Child of Hope by Nikki Grimes to read to the Kindergartners. I adapted the text to make it a bit shorter and more understandable to this age group, but, even so, decided it was too difficult for the three to four year olds. For them I selected Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport. As usual, I used the fabulous document camera to project the wonderful illustrations in each book onto a screen so everyone could enjoy them.

Even though the Obama book included words and phrases that I don't think the Kindergartners understood (e.g., references to Harvard Law School and Mahatma Gandhi), it was an unqualified hit. The children in my school are huge Obama fans. I had them from the word "Barack" and it was all uphill from there.

The three to four year olds did a great job of listening to the story of Martin Luther King and most of them did not react to hearing of his murder. But after I finished reading in one class a child raised his hand and asked "Who shot him?" and that opened the floodgates. A whole bunch of hands went up and kids asked "What does 'shot' mean?"; You mean, he died?"' "Why did that happen?"; and "Where is he now?" I told them that Rev. King was killed by someone who hadn't learned in school and church to "use his words instead of hitting" and that on King's birthday we remember that he taught "love, not hate." The children nodded solemnly and we moved ahead to check-out time.