MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Cooney, Barbara.  Miss Rumphius,  Puffin, 1985.

As a child Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.

I found out about this book while reading the following article in the Boston Globe:

A Beautiful Way to Help Children
Boston Globe, 8/10/04

A routine school assignment landed little Kaylee Wallace in Children's Hospital yesterday -- which was just what she wanted.

Kaylee's first-grade teacher at Wellfleet Elementary School, on Cape Cod, had asked the class to write about how they would make the world more beautiful. Kaylee, 7, wrote that she would buy toys for sick children. Then, she told her parents, who had adopted her from China six years ago, that she actually wanted to do it.

"She said, 'We're going to sell lemonade,' " recalled Kaylee's father, John Wallace.

That's how Kaylee raked in more than $850 to buy toys that filled several large boxes, which she and her parents delivered to a playroom in Children's Hospital yesterday. The toys will be distributed to the hospital's several playrooms.

The writing assignment that inspired Kaylee was given after her class read Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, a story told by a young girl about her great-aunt, who scatters flower seeds around the world because her grandfather had told her when she was little that she needed to do something to make the world more beautiful.

Couric, Katie.  The Brand New Kid.  Doubleday, October 10, 2000.

On Ellie and Carrie's first day of second grade there's a brand new kid in the class. But when the teacher asks her students to welcome the ultrablond, blue-eyed, pink-lipped, loud-voiced, accent-sporting Lazlo S. Gasky to Brookhaven School, they all mock him instead: "Too different and strange to fit in they all feared." Lazlo grows unhappier by the minute, as he is ostracized and taunted by his classmates. One day, however, when Ellie sees his sad-looking mother walking forlornly toward her car ("Her son's having trouble, she might pull him out, / this school may be wrong for him, she's full of doubt"), things begin to look up for Lazlo. At that moment Ellie begins to wonder what it must be like to be a new kid, feeling so "different and strange," and she decides to take steps to get to know him, even at the risk of facing her friends' ridicule. ("At school the next day the kids stopped her and said, / 'You were walking with Lazlo, are you sick in the head?'  Ellie paused and replied, 'Now I know him, you see, / Lazlo isn't that different from you and from me.'"

NBC News' Today coanchor Katie Couric's rhyming book provides a healthy approach to treating people who may be perceived as different, and works well as a springboard to discussion. Though the suddenness of Ellie's turnaround in attitude seems a bit unnatural and the rhymes are often forced ("They arrived at his door greeted by his French poodle / and Mrs. Gasky was there with a plate of warm strudel!"), the message of The Brand New Kid will certainly not be lost on children. As Couric writes in her introduction, "It sometimes takes courage, but I hope this story will inspire all of us to reach out and make someone feel a little less scared and a little less lonely." Hear, hear. Caldecott Honor artist Marjorie Priceman's watercolor spreads are positively delightful, washing warmly over the pages in a free, buoyant style. (Ages 4 to 8)