Atall School
Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak
Recently, I again visited some of my favorite kids in the whole wide world in an archetypal one-room country school house.
Photo of Atall School
The purpose of this visit, as always, was to read a book to the 12 students, ranging from grades K to 8. One might think that it is hard to choose a story, which will capture the interest of kids from 5 to 13, but it really is not. For example, the teacher just finished reading “The Secret Garden” with them. On this particular day, I chose to read Book With No Pictures.
Watch the author, B.J. Novak, read his Book With No Pictures.
I’m sure that I am not as good as the author when I was reading the book, but all of the kids were hooting, laughing, squealing, and/or smiling. The younger children loved it the most, and we all loved them loving it. Of course, everyone’s favorite pages, is when I had to read loudly, BOO-BOO BUTT, BOO-BOO BUTT. Ok, I winced a bit, but not the kids!
Later in the day, I noticed that 5-year old, Everett, had taken the book to his desk to read it by himself. Of course, he turned immediately to the infamous pages, and carefully with his little “pointer” finger was quietly reading aloud about the hippo, named BOO-BOO BUTT with a proud little smile on his face.
At the end of that school day, the parents pick up most of these 12 children and drive them to an after-school church youth group program. The youngest children went happily skipping and laughing out the door, and in their best sing-songy voices they were squealing, “BOO-BOO BUTT, BOO-BOO BUTT, Soldiers of the Cross.”
I cringed wondering what the parents must have thought….
