ABSTRACT
“A child who becomes a lover of books is blessed with a gift that money can’t buy. I’ve always felt most excited about my students who were passionate about reading. I knew they would see more in life, understand more and experience the comfort and expanding perspective that books can give. It is up to us, as parents, teachers, and all adults who have some influence in a child’s life to support and encourage the love of reading and books. Very early, about the time children learn to write, I became a writer. My mother called my ever expanding collection of stories The Miss Flouncy Stories. When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote a hundred page novel, written on both sides of loose leaf notebook paper. It was about a little girl who had to leave the city and move to the country. There were two things I found challenging in this first major writing endeavor. I had never been to the country, so I found description of scenery very difficult, to say the least. Further, I could not imagine my main character black. In my heart I made her black—or colored, as was the term in those days, but I gave her long blond hair and blue eyes. I felt vindicated because in the spring of my fifth grade a new student had entered the fourth grade at 42nd Street School. A Negro girl by the name of Linda Shannonh. Lo and behold, she had long blond hair and green eyes.”
