>I’m sharing the stage with the Mayor tomorrow — for about 15 minutes. It’s Read Across America day, and our school is doing it up big. Read Across America celebrates uses Dr. Seuss’ birthday, March 2 as a target date to celebrate the love of reading. Since the magic date falls on a Sunday this year, we’re celebrating on February 29.
It’s a school spirit day, with everyone who cares to participate dressing in Cat in the Hat colors: red, white, and black. I hesitate to waste a casual Friday on a dress-up day, but since I dressed down for the talent show yesterday, I suppose it all evens out in the end. Husband asked if I was Thing One or Thing Two when I pulled out my red and white striped sweater to wear with my black pants. Most years I wear my official Seuss sweatshirt proclaiming One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish, but it’s a rather thick fleece, and the weather may be close to thirty degrees (that’s positively balmy, for those who were wondering).
So back to the staging of this event. We’ll open with a short talk by the mayor, possibly hear him read The Cat in the Hat, and then I’ll read my own Dr. Seuss tribute poem.
Then we’ll move from room to room and listen to a variety of Dr. Seuss books read by local volunteers and celebrity guests. After it’s all done, and the students have moved back to their classrooms, we’ll have cake. That may be the part the kiddos will look forward to the most! I plan a short period of SSR (Self-Selected Reading, also known as Silent Sustained Reading) to help my highly active class settle down after the excitement. I’d hate to send them home for the weekend wired to the max.
Then again, sending them home on a mild sugar high might be fair enough.
Back to the main topic, I won’t need to worry about upstaging the mayor. He gets top billing.
But can he rhyme?

Update–
I didn’t hog the microphone: he did. There wasn’t time enough for the poem, and I’m okay with that. The students enjoyed all of our guest readers, including two from the public library and one school board member. The board member complimented me on the poem; our librarian had included a copy in his “gift bag” for the day. Well, it’s not major swag like the Oscars, but we wanted to show our appreciation for their time. All in all, it was a good celebration.