IN THE CLASSROOM -- What they read comes to life

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- It’s not often that you will find the tooth fairy, a

couple of cats, a clown, Santa Claus and a workman all in the same room.

But with many months to go before Halloween, that was the makeup of

Sharon Fairborn’s first-grade class at Newport Elementary School on

Friday.

Students dressed as main characters from one of the more than 8,000

books they have read this school year.

The class of fewer than 20 children has read 8,328 books to be exact.

Each time the class collectively reads another 1,000 books, they have

a Just Read celebration, in which students are invited to bring in their

favorite book and something to dress up in.

So when Troy Arnold, 6, stood before his classmates, he put on a pair

of glasses as he held up his book, “Arthur’s Eyes,” and began to explain

the story.

“He didn’t see, so he got glasses, and he didn’t want to wear them,”

Troy told the class. “So he put them in the washing machine.”

Next came Christine Bonadonna, 7, in a suit that at first glance

looked like a cow outfit, but the lack of an utter and presence of

whiskers soon made it clear she was a kitten.

The most entertaining was a tossup between the very serious and the

silliest.

In a bright yellow construction hat, Michael King, 6, stood at the

front of the room.

“This book is called ‘Road Builder,’ and it is about building roads,”

he said. “First, they have to dig a hole with a back hoe. Then, they have

to lay down some asphalt.”

To hear a 6-year-old carefully explaining the process as if it were

the most fascinating thing in the world was almost as humorous as the

child who loved a book about pickles.

Now as a child pickle-lover myself, Kyle Lucas’ devotion to the pickle

book was adorable.

“My book is about pickles, and I like it because it’s about pickles,”

he said.

It apparently did not have the clearest of story lines, however,

because when he was asked what the main character did, Kyle had a

perplexed look on his face.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just pages that say stuff.”

Students appreciated Gracie Peck’s favorite book because she brought

her pet hamster.

But as an adult, it was pure humor hearing 7-year-old Zoe Robles’

response to the question of did she like spiders -- because she chose a

book about them.

“I’m not scared of squishing them,” she answered eagerly.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.