Great School Visits

Funny things happen when you visit schools.

Over the last two days I spoke to more than 1,500 students, ages 5-10, at five schools in the Hershey-Hummeltown area of Pennsylvania. So much fun, but today I'm exhausted!

Among the funny moments: East Hanover Librarian Sarah Conley told me not to be alarmed by the Viking Pilgrim in the faculty restroom. Say what? It turns out the custodians take turns decorating the faculty restroom for the holidays with more and more outlandish results. "They are trying to freak each other out," she explained. "You should've seen the Halloween decorations."

Librarian Annette Trautman at Londonderry Elementary said she interpreted my "secret" about eating meat at Thanksgiving to mean that I put only turkey on my plate and no side dishes. She inferred this, she explained, because she herself eats only the stuffing.

The last assembly -- 375 students K-5 on the gym floor at Nye Elementary in Hummeltown -- took place on Friday afternoon, a beautiful day. Pretty hard to keep everyone's attention on little old me! We were telling a story together, this one about a monkey named JoJo who had lost a banana in space, and -- as usual -- I asked the kids to imagine what JoJo would see around him. I was trying hard to find a student who would give me a good answer and picked a pretty blond third grade girl wearing glasses. She's a safe bet, I thought to myself. What did she say? A toilet.

As usual, many many students asked for the story of Max and the Coyote, which I told with relish. Oddly, Max the dachshund gets more heroic with every telling!