More tissues....

The atmosphere in the school library this past Thursday was somber.... the fifth and sixth grade students are sad that Book Club is coming to and end. The sixth graders will be going to the Junior High and will not have a Book Club there, unless one of the students organizes it themselves.... and they can use books right from the school library. I gave them that idea, and maybe one or two of them will follow it through.

I was overwhelmed with their sadness, and overwhelmed yet again at a fifth grader’s love for a particular series of books.... “Dinotopia.”  This fifth grade boy won a top prize for his grade, and I gave him a gift bag filled with the Dinotopia stories. The look of joy on his face was so heart-warming and joyous that I can guess that it will be this book series that will have him hooked on reading for a very long g time, if not forever.

Just one more book club Thursday to go, on May 10.  We can’t meet next week because the kids are taking tests, and they were not happy about that either. They said they can take the tests any other day, so why did it have to be a Thursday.... which in their minds is Book Club Day.

The fourth graders were not as sad as the two other grades.... they just wanted to get out in the schoolyard to play because the weather was so beautiful. And I wish I had dismissed that grade early, and then spent the rest of the time with the fifth and sixth graders without being interrupted by the rambunctiousness of the fourth graders.  I do not regret my decision to limit next term’s Book Club to just fifth and sixth graders.

This entire term with the 40-plus book club kids has been more satisfying than I can describe. I know I have truly reached at least a dozen of these kids with the belief that the more they read, the further they will go in this world, and if a dozen life-long readers is the end result of this term, then that’s more than the world would have received without The Magic Wand Book Club.

I don’t want this term to end, but it will soon come to a close, and I have already begun collecting books for next term. Life is good. And sometimes it takes a little magic to make it sparkle.