John the Giraffe

May 28, 2009

Dear Leslie,

John the Giraffe has been stalking me for a year now. The idea really was just a single sentence: "John the Giraffe forgot how to laugh." Everyone has known times when we've forgotten how to laugh. The reasons why don't matter. What matters is rediscovering our happiness.

For the past few months, I have been happily reading to students in Kristin Hummel's second-grade class at Blanchard Elementary School. Students who might be struggling a bit read to me individually in the hall outside her class. I did little but listen and correct the occasional error or prompt the student when a particular word did not compute. Ms. Hummel says extra individual attention always helps students improve.

But John the Giraffe wouldn't go away. When I asked Ms. Hummel if the class could try writing about him, she didn't even hesitate. She is the kind of teacher every elementary school student ought to have.

We began by reading from Calef Brown's whimsical poetry book "Flamingos on the Roof." They heard my favorite poem, "Allicatter Gatorpillar," over and over.

When I told the class we were going to write our own book, a hand shot up. "But we don't know how to write a book," said Caleb, an Opie-esque boy in the back of the room.

We're going to learn the way anyone learns to do anything, I told the class. By doing it. I didn't tell them I didn't know how to write a book either.

We began with the title and talked about why John might have forgotten how to laugh. The class thought a fight with his sister or a broken leg might do it. We moved on to listing things John might do to cheer himself up. Ice cream was a popular antidote. So was going to the park. Next we talked about friends and how they might be important if you forgot how to laugh.

We compiled a list of John the Giraffe's friends and didn't limit them to monkeys and zebras and hippos. We imagined John could think of a mountain and a river and trees as friends. That the sun and moon could be friends.

Of course, friends have to have names. Hip Hop the Hippo, Chumpy the Monkey and Sushi the Seahorse all bubbled from the minds of these 7- and 8-year-olds.

Then we explored how his friends might try to help John the Giraffe remember how to laugh. When he visited her in the sea, Sushi served him tea and saltwater taffy. Sprinkles the Rain played him a song with the sounds raindrops make. Pasha the Grass tickled his feet. Smokey the Dragon made him s'mores.

Ms. Hummel and I were laughing out loud as the ideas bounced around the class.

Week after week we wrote the story about each friend's attempts to help John remember how to laugh. While I was away the students drew pictures of the characters they had just written about. Many are suitable for framing.

The students, Ms. Hummel told me toward the end, were worried about whether John the Giraffe would ever remember how to laugh. I reassured them he would and explained how. Once John the Giraffe looked around at his friends and understood how much he was loved and cared for, he would rediscover his happiness. He'd remember how to laugh.

DC scanned the drawings at Target, and on Tuesday Blanchard Elementary School printed the 20-page book in their computer lab. Wednesday, the last day of school, each of Ms. Hummel's 19 students received a copy of the book they'd written and illustrated.

My wish is that one day in the future, when they've forgotten how to laugh, they remember John the Giraffe.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.