Books Read to Me in Elementary School

My friend Amanda and me about a month ago.
We met in our 2nd grade class.

Ah, elementary school. So many good memories. That one time I twisted my ankle falling off the

monkey bars and got stuck in an air cast for who knows how long. The yo-yo man who rocketed yo-yos into popularity. Meeting a friend that is still your friend 20 years later. That time Red Rover was banned from the playground. That other time when everything Pokemon was banned. And yet another time when I nearly passed out in the middle of class, so someone from the nurse's office came and pushed me back to their office in a wheelchair. The list goes on and on.

I think one of the highlights of my young school career was that special time in the middle of the day when we would all gather around our teacher’s feet criss-cross-applesauce style and she would read to us from the pages of some glorious piece of fiction. I believe this is one of the things that fostered my love of reading (that and independent reading time, trips to the library, those forced reading tests, books on tape, and my friend Kathryn who always had a good book to recommend, and I’m pretty sure she’s the first person to inspire me to read books under my desk instead of listening to the teacher…).

Here are some of the books I remember being read to me during that very special portion of class time:

Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco

As I recall, this is a bit of a sad book. It’s a story about two boy soldiers who meet each other in the heat of the Civil War. One of the boys is white while the other is a former slave. This book was read to me in either 2^nd or 3^rd grade, and obviously it left a lasting impression on me. I haven’t actually read the book since (now I’m going to have to pick up a copy!), but I remember the end being very tragically touching. I don’t want to give anything away! This is a 48-page children’s book.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

This is another children’s book with just 32 pages! This was such a fun retelling of a well known story, and I loved it as a child! The story is told from the perspective of the wolf. I love stories like these that make us see multiple possibilities or perspectives of a single story. In this version of the story, you’ll see that the wolf, perhaps, wasn’t as bad as he seemed. This is a really fun children’s story!

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

If you’re familiar with this book, you’ll know that it also has a sad ending, and yet, I love it. Basically it’s about a young boy and his two dogs. I bet you can guess what makes the ending sad… I tried to read another book by Wilson Rawls, and I just couldn’t get into it. (That was Summer of the Monkeys by the way.) But this one, even now, is a great piece of fiction. Also, I recently saw a statue depicting this boy and his two dogs outside of a public library, so apparently I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a great story.

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

This is a series of four children's books that I absolutely loved! We even watched a video version of these stories at school. As you can imagine, they tell about the adventures of two best friends, Frog and Toad.

Some honorable mentions are:

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'dell

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stile Gannett

(I actually don't remember if this one was read to us or if we read it together. I just remember doing big projects on it. I'm pretty sure I made a board game centered around the book.)

Most of these books were read to me by my 2nd/3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Sadler. She even gave me a couple of books which are still in my collection all of these years later. So even though she'll most likely never ever see this post, this one's dedicated to her. I always thought she was a great teacher. Thanks, Mrs. Sadler! I hope I was a decent student back then!

Tune in next week for my final review of the book Starters! Until then, are there any books you remember that were read to you in school?