Read Across America at Burney Elementary School: A Seussian Story

First grade teacher Ginny Casaurang leads her students
in an exercise to sort real and imaginary words
into two lists as they await their readers
from Burney High School’s Leadership Class.

On one recent Friday, our Miss Casaurang,

to her first-grade students so many words brang.

Now, some were quite “real” and some were quite “wacky,”

to stick to two lists with glue very tacky.

But why would her kids wacky words need to know?

Some Burney High students would very soon show!

Reading to Miss Casaurang’s first-graders:
Bailey Turner and Levi Perkins.

They came at ten-thirty with books in their hand,

in Burney, Fall River, and throughout the land.

An annual joy, since two decades ago,

on Dr. Seuss’ birthday his stories would go

to all of our classrooms, each boy and each girl,

to brighten kids’ minds, to broaden their world.

In Mrs. Spainhower’s room, Fabiola Perez and Noah Bishop
share their experiences with the third-grade class.

The older ones did more than read them a book,

they asked for some questions, they gave kids a look

at fun facts to know about good Dr. Seuss,

and where they would go when their school turned them loose.

From High School, the Leadership students had come,

saying: “Here’s where you’ll go when elementary’s done.”

Here, Hannah Pearson has just finished reading
to Mrs. Noack’s fourth-graders
as Favian Jimenez prepares to field questions.

No child appeared sad to hear “Six. Years. More!”

This “high school” described was surely no bore!

Their elders spoke clear: “Core classes galore,”

yet promised “electives, clubs, sports-teams, and more!”

So ‘twasn’t just books celebrated from yore,

‘twas examples of hope that their lives hold in store.

Pulling double-duty, Fabiola Perez and Noah Bishop
found Mrs. Bower’s fifth-graders eager to ask very specifically
about the high school experience they would enter
within the next eighteen months.

It may seem too brief, or too little, this day.

Will it change children’s lives? It seems hard to say.

But on this day in March, the second, each year,

from children to children a message rings clear:

That “We care enough to take time, to come read.

And we hope you’ll see, sometimes, that’s all that you need.”

-Wm. Darius Myers