Georgia Heard, Candlewick Press: 2002, 2006, $17.
One of the darkest things a school
principal must confront is the death of a student or the death of a student’s
parent. You can’t shake the fact
that such tragedies put all that we do on a daily basis into a painful perspective. Our education, our training – and
almost always our words – fail us.
Shortly after the events of September 11th, 2001,
Georgia Heard collected a dozen and a half children’s poems and worked with a
similar number of children’s book illustrators to create a delightfully moving little
collection called This Place I Know. Her intent was to provide words of comfort to the children
who lost so much on that tragic day.
I somehow stumbled across the book and purchased a personal
copy. Shortly thereafter, I
received a call through my superintendent that the father of one of my students
needed to see him for an important matter. Could it wait until recess? No. It seems
his mother was on a cruise ship vacation and, with handbag or purse missing,
her body was found at the foot of a flight of stairs. Dad needed to deliver the news. He did so in the parking lot about fifty feet from my office
door. The boy crumpled as I
watched helplessly.
That evening, I went home and reread my favorite poem from This
Place I Know. Then I read them
all. Within the week, I dropped by
the student’s house and gave him the book.
Over the course of several years, I found myself giving
copies to many kids, and in the case of students taken from us, to many
classroom libraries.
I’ve been out of the business for
six years now, but the import of that tiny volume lingers.
A couple of weeks ago, the headline in the Santa Rosa Press
Democrat screamed: “Two children die after truck plunges into river.” The elder child had just started second
grade at a small, coastal school housing about 100 students K through 8. It's nearby.
I thought of the family, the teacher and the school principal
and sought my volume of This Place I Know. I needed to pass it forward.
© 2016
Church of the Open Road Press
A visit to my favorite independently owned book seller finds that this little gem is now "out of print." I was able to locate a used copy to replace the one offered to the little school, but do not look forward to the day when all of these are gone...
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