I spent a lovely lunchtime yesterday with a group of my high school friends yesterday. We enjoyed the small cafe at Way Fruit Farm on the north side of State College. I shared a lot of pictures of the facility in a post in the fall of 2021. You can check it out at https://marykisner.com/wonderful-lunch-with-high-school-friends/.
This time, I discovered a small display of books written by local authors hiding near the soda machine. These two books caught my attention because I had heard of the author, Debbie Marsh.
Debbie taught elementary grades in the State College Area for 30 years. She also wrote a monthly newspaper column called, “Notes From the Teacher,” for the Centre Daily Times. I remember reading her column and found her sense of humor and advice to parent of school age children very refreshing.
Her first book, The Book of Frank, is a series of stories based on her experiences with young children in the kindergarten classroom. The student named Frank in the stories represents a number of children she remembered. Absolutely spot on! The second book, The Book of Stella, continues her stories with more insights about the teacher’s role in the classroom.
The stories reminded me of my first two years of teaching, which were in kindergarten in the State College Area Schools! Almost every example she shared, I had had a similar experience. The whole book reminded me of the Art Linkletter television show from years past, Kids Say the Darndest Things (I think that was the name).
I know that classrooms today might have a totally different feel than when I started teaching in 1968, but many of Debbie’s challenges are still challenging today because 5-year-olds are FIVE YEARS OLD!
If you have folks in your life that are considering being a teacher of young children; or you are just starting to teach; or you have retired from teaching… you will love this book. I wish I had read it at the beginning of my career. But now, 45 years after I left elementary teaching it still gave me a chuckle and a shiver of memories from the 8 years I taught elementary school. I highly recommend both of these books.
Both books are available from Amazon. As of today, The Book of Frank by Debbie Marsh (published in 2014) is available as a Kindle and Kindle Unlimited book (free) or as a paperback ($3.46). The Book of Stella by Debbie Marsh (published in 2018) is also available as a Kindle and Kindle Unlimited book (free) and as a paperback ($10.99).
Enjoy!
My mother found my name from an Art Linkletter radio show before I was born.
That’s a neat memory!