Kids Corner

(Olive Press/Phoenicia Times June 18 issue)

I was impressed this spring by Kylie Kline in my class when she finished this book called Dragon Rider because it was two inches thick! Summer is a great time to kick back and relax with a book. Last summer I wrote about a book challenge Rosie at the Olive Library made to kids. I was going to read 24 books, but I failed. I got distracted by summer games and camps. This summer, the same thing will probably happen, but right now I’m really into reading. I started getting historical adventures from our next-door teacher, Mrs. Mayone. These books are a blast from the past coated in excitement. They boggle and interest my mind, and it’s like someone is talking to me while I’m reading. Words are like waves in my mind that satisfy me because they fill up my thoughts. I am interested in what other adults liked to read when they were my age. I asked Markus Heidelberg of Krumville and he said, “I liked little newspaper stories, short, odd stories like ‘Man Bites Dog,’ which really happened in Japan.” I know Markus, and he probably liked those stories because he’s a strange person himself (but in a good way). Margaret Cogswell of West Shokan said, “I liked reading biographies on people like Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale.” I asked her why she liked stories about nurses and she told me, “ It might have had something to do with my sister having polio when she was two. She was sick a lot and in and out of a lot of hospitals. I really admire people who help other people, and who risk there lives for and inspire people.” Readers: don’t feel discouraged about getting distracted from reading this summer: just remind yourself of why you read.