What a Race!

Although we have a year to go, what is my fan­ta­sy for Elec­tion Day? How about this: a stu­dent mock elec­tion around children’s books. Kids would cre­ate cam­paigns on behalf of their favorite writ­ers — or char­ac­ters — com­plete with can­di­date posters and video­taped ads. Tiny “Vote Yes for Read­ing” and “Amend Your Vocab­u­lary” signs would appear on every desk. Class­room news­pa­pers would fea­ture stu­dent-writ­ten book reports, author/character fea­ture pieces, per­sua­sive let­ters to the edi­tor, and polit­i­cal car­toons. There would be impas­sioned debates, with stu­dents step­ping in on behalf of the can­di­dates (espe­cial­ly crit­i­cal in the case of fiction­al beings).

And the win­ner would be? Every­one! Who could lose in a race like that?