Bring K-L-E-E-N-E-X to Class Tomorrow!
In honor of this months children’s writing theme, I’d like to take a look at a young adult novel that haunted me from my own childhood. We can all remember one, if not several books we were made to read in elementary and junior high school. They created memories that had the kind of staying power that only young impressionable minds would give them. Whether you loved some of your “first readers” or couldn’t stand them, something stuck out in your mind. Then as your younger sibling or even your own child ends up reading the same book in school you remember back to your first impressions and find it difficult not to influence them.
When I recall back on the first few “real” books I ever had to read in school it always saddens me. The first book I can remember reading was “Where The Red Fern Grows,” by Wilson Rawls. I loved that book, until the end when his two dogs died and I cried my eyes out. I always was that sensitive kid who had all the pets at home, and the thought of losing one (not to mention two), was overwhelming to me. For years I wondered why a book so sad would be aimed towards small children, and even these days I sometimes wish I could have read it when I was older. Then I realize if I had been older, I wouldn’t have read it. I would have found Cliff’s Notes, or some summary of it online like students do these days and would have gotten around reading what is actually a very good book.
After we read it in class, to add insult to what I thought was a pretty bad injury, they made us watch the movie version of the most famous of Wilson Rawls works, “Old Yeller.” They actually warned us to bring a box of K-L-E-E-N-E-X to school that day if you can imagine. I was in the third grade. We did a lot of reading that year. Of course my friend Katie and I sat there crying our eyes out, using up all those tissues that she had the forethought to bring.
As I look through the book now and remember how much I did like it before it became such a sad memory, I realize the importance of children’s writing such as Rawls. In third grade, after you’ve read the “first readers” and the small chapter books, you graduate to a new level of more complex reading. There are dozens of books that elementary school teachers choose to teach annually for
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