From: Robin Smith <smithr>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:31:03 -0500

Dear all, It has been so interesting to see which characters have the permanent staying power for each person.

There are certain characters that I refer to so often that they seem more real than some folks I see in the flesh. As I read aloud to my class each school year, we refer to the characters we have grown to love in my class or they have gotten to know in other classrooms or in their homes.

So many have already been mentioned, but I find myself casually referring to these characters regularly:

1. Miss Agnes fro Kirkpatrick Hill's _The Year of Miss Agnes_ (her no-nonsense, careful teaching continues to be my model of a the teacher I wish I was)

2. Ramona Quimby (she is Everykid and we love to live through her--and hope we don't break an egg on our head, throw up in school...)

3. Louis the Swan and Sam Beaver in _The Trumpet of the Swan_ (Louis' striving for True Love and Sam's gentle reverence for nature always touches these young students and I gives us a way to discuss "defects" and how to accept our own "defects"

4. Aunt Sally and PeeWee/Frank and his sisters in Polly Horvath's _The Trolls_ (Can there be a better phrase than "ixnay, ixnay" as a warning? PeeWee's transformation to Frank and his burgeoning understanding of the evils of jealousy makes this a book I read and we love to listen to later in the year on tape. It's the only book we hear twice in one year. We just can't get enough of these characters.)

5. Any William Steig character, but, for me, Amos and Boris are my very favorites.

Thanks for this fun topic.

Robin
Received on Fri 19 Jun 2009 10:31:03 AM CDT