Reading room

Mary Ellen (the first grade teacher and my friend, to whose class I read on Friday mornings because reading to kids is one of the things I miss from when I was a teacher) called me this morning to say that the class was going to Books to be Red at 10:00 (my usual reading time), to listen to a story read by "Miss Leslie". The kids usually go to the local bookstore on Friday afternoons, but Leslie would be substiting at the school in the afternoon, so the reading time had been moved to 10:00. I told Mary Ellen that, since it was a lovely day, I would enjoy joining the kids to listen to Leslie read (I knew that they usually sit outside the shop, if the weather is nice enough). And I did, indeed, thoroughly enjoy sitting in the shade on the platform which will be the Deepwater stage for the Ocrafolk Festival in just over a month, and listening to two chapters of The Boxcar Children.

As I listened, I reflected on the lovely sense of community involved in this activity. I suppose there are other towns in which the local bookstore has readings for children, and school classes attend. But I bet there aren't many who do it on a weekly basis, with the kids sitting outside under lovely old live oak and cedar trees, after having walked in complete safety down the road to the shop! I suspect school buses, field trip signature forms, and a great deal of planning are involved for other schools. The extent of our planning was stopping by the office on the way out, just to let them know where the first grade class was going, and sending two kids in to the office when we came back, to let them know we had returned. It is this simplicity which makes Ocracoke such a lovely, peaceful place, and is the reason so many people visit here to get away from their daily, sometimes hectic lives.

Links/more info:
Ocrafolk Festival