Posted October 2, 2006

Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal visited Churchill first graders Thursday, connecting to their inner author as she read two of her books aloud. Rosenthal, a Chicago author of books for children and for adult readers as well as host of NPR’s Writer’s Block Party, read “Little Pea” and “Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons” to the assembled classes in the Churchill Library, a room filled with evidence of the children’s own efforts to write books. In “Little Pea” the story unfolds around a pea whose parents insist he eat all his sweets before he is allowed to have his vegetables for dessert. This unheard of dilemma caught the children’s attention, with prompting one young listener to exclaim, “I want to be little pea!”

In “Cookies…” ethics and character are examined through the lens of that favorite treat, for example, "Trustworthy means, If you ask me to hold your cookie until you come back, when you come back, I will still be holding your cookie." Rosenthal brought along the original, hand-made copy of “Little Pea,” which she had written as a bedtime story for her daughter, telling the children, “I know you all write books, too.” Rosenthal also visited Benjamin Franklin School, and both visits were arranged with help from Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.