Sushi in my dreams

Houdini Was......

Last night, I had a horrible dream that the inside of Sushi's bowl was so murky and filthy, I could barely find his sweet shimmery turquoise body floating in the thick cloud of "white yuck" in the water.  I "fished" him out of the water with my hand and tried to resuscitate him through the process of begging and pleading with him, "Please live.  Please live.  What will I tell my students, Sushi?"  To no avail, he passed away in my hand.  Maybe I should have put him back in the yuck. 

Today, my daughter and I visited a Scholastic Book Fair at the local library.  I wanted to see it up and running as we will be having our own at school the last week of September.  Such wonderful treats at the book fair!!  I did stumble upon one of the sweetest books I have seen to date entitled Houdini Was --written and illustrated by Second Grade students from Richland, Virginia.  The story is students' personal account of their class pet hamster "Houdini" and how she impacted their lives each day in their second grade classroom.  Obviously, because of the use of the past tense form of "to be" in the title, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that Houdini dies during the school year. (LOVE the names Houdini AND Einstein in the same sentence!!)  But the words students chose and the pictures they drew give life to a creature that most of us just simply take for granted and find somewhat unlovable.

Putting the book away on the mobile bookshelf, I paused for a second and thought about Sushi and my dream last night.  I don't know if our kids could handle writing a book together entitled Sushi Was.  For some strange reason, our younger students really love him.  But instead, I thought it might be a lot of fun to have our second graders write and illustrate Sushi is.  I will have to tuck that idea away for future use.  Oh!!  The places you can go with your students in the library!!!  I love my job!!