Pass the tissues, please...

At this week's meeting of The Magic Wand Book Club, I gave out the Reading Excellence awards to the fifth and sixth graders. (The fourth graders got their awards last week.)  I have to say that I was surprised at the emotional responses of the girls, especially those in the fifth grade.  I literally had to hand out tissues because they were so sad at the thought of the Book Club coming to an end... we have just two more Thursday meetings and that's it for the term.

I have already spoken to the school principal about hosting the Book Club next term, and I told the students that I would be spending the summer looking for more great books for them. I already have a dozen copies of "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the sixth graders, but I haven't mentioned that to the students.

The fifth grade boy who won a Reading Excellence medal had asked me about books in the 'Dinotopia' series... he had read two of the books and really enjoyed them. That paperback series is no longer in print, but I found the first eight books (in a 22-book series) on the Internet and I ordered them and put them in a gift bag for him. The look on that boy's face when he saw all the 'Dinotopia' stories was just priceless.

A sixth grade girl won the Grand Prize, a full hardcover Harry Potter set of books, and she was just speechless when I announced that, and she tried so hard not to cry but I handed her some tissues anyway, just in case.  Another winner in the fifth grade got a whole set of the "Anne of Green Gables" books, and she just sat there while tears rolled down her cheeks and she clutched her Reading medal in her hands as if she had just won the Olympics.

These students have so very little in that tiny community of theirs, and any little unexpected surprise is like Christmas-on-steroids to them. Surprising them with the reading certificates and medals, and books to read during the summer.... what I thought would be a small delight for them turned into a mega-enormous Christmas-in-April explosion of cheers and tears.

The Magic Wand Book Club... a small idea of mine, or so I thought in the beginning... this has turned into something extremely important to these students, and it has made me realize that such small concepts can turn into huge life-changing experiences.

The Book Club's motto--- "The magic is not in the wand, the magic is in you!" --- that has also expanded to include:  "You can be anything in this world, so be kind."  -and-  "Don't make a mess, make a difference."

Just two more Book Club Thursdays to go... I am going to miss those kids over the summer. Will someone pass the tissues, please....