PAnews.com, Port Arthur, Texas

Local News

Related Photos

  • MIKE TOBIAS

    READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY 3-3

  • MIKE TOBIAS

    READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY 3-3

Discussion

March 2, 2009

Kids in hats honor ‘The Cat in the Hat’ author

DARRAGH DOIRON

Some days are yellow. Some are blue, Theodor Geisel wrote. Known to generations as Dr. Seuss, he wrote books that children who turned into grandparents still love to share.

To celebrate what would have been his 105th birthday and Read Across America Day, St. Catherine of Siena School students on Monday wore tall paper hats, striped in red and white, like the “The Cat in the Hat” sported.

Seuss was his pen name and mother’s maiden name, students explained by way of introduction to classmates gathered in the gym. Readers, including Dr. Maureen Lindell and Dr. Gary Mennie, read to students from a “throne” decorated to look like any one who sat in it wore the iconic tall, striped hat.

Excited children who know most of the stories helped make it a blue day for Principal Michael Collins, who read “My Many Colored Days.” “On blue days I flap my wings,” Collins read.

He flapped, and students laughed.

Nicole Murray of KFDM-TV, Channel 6, read “Horton Hears a Who” and told children it was the first time she’d experienced the story. Miguel Solis, a former student, delighted students by asking them to make rain sounds to set the mood for the rainy day the cat in the hat showed up.

The story is that Dr. Seuss wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” after a challenge to write a book with 50 words. Jose Barron, a student of equally few words, told what he liked about dressing as “The Cat in the Hat” to distribute bookmarks to his classmates.

“Everything,” said the 12-year-old in cat makeup.

Marcus Gleinser, a 10-year-old in the 4th grade, said he loves reading and doesn’t know anyone who doesn’t. He tends toward adventure and imaginary genres, and might pick those if he ever does any writing of his own, he said. Mary Anne Sigur and Jennifer Redlich helped organize the program in honor of Read Across America Day, where every adult is encouraged to read to a child.

ddoiron@panews.com

Text Only
Local News