A Day for Rhymes With a Reason

Students across Orange County snuggled up in their pajamas Thursday for a good long read. Others sampled that rare delicacy, green eggs and ham.

In every corner, grown-ups and kids risked bad hair days by donning tall, candy-cane striped hats. Sure, they looked silly, but their motivation--promoting literacy--was serious. The occasion was Read Across America day, a nationwide reading extravaganza pegged to the birthday of beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss.

On this day, debates about language skills and phonics took a back seat to the sheer enjoyment of books. In Rancho Santa Margarita, everyone from a television anchorwoman to the school custodian grabbed a hat and turned a few pages. In the immigrant neighborhoods of Anaheim, the kids enjoyed Seuss en Espanol, as many did in Santa Ana.

In Garden Grove, older students read to their younger peers. The older kid-younger kid story time was a big hit at Crosby Elementary in Garden Grove.

“If I’m a fourth-grader and I go to read to first-graders, I’m in my old teacher’s room, but now I’m the teacher. It really gives kids a boost,” Crosby Principal Anker Christensen said. “For the first-graders, that’s a big brother, a big sister or a big kid you look up to reading to them.”

Many schools took to a pajama-party theme for the day, with kids bringing along robes and teddy bears.

“We want the kids to be relaxed,” said San Juan Elementary Principal Silvia Pule, who was the first to pull on pajamas for story time there. “In between the guest speakers, we move the desks to the sides and curl up and read.”

Some schools had essay contests. Others didn’t participate at all--mostly because they didn’t know about the relatively new event.

Arroyo Vista Principal Kathy Skibiski was looking forward to the afternoon’s curl-up and read event, where students would grab their pillows and stuffed animals for a 90-minute reading respite.

But first she had to dash to a fifth-grade classroom to read a story about a common childhood fear, called “Principal From the Black Lagoon.” The book was a present from a student. It features a seemingly scary administrator who turns out to be a smiling blond (who looks more than a little like Skibiski).

About 200 students at Mable Paine Elementary School in Yorba Linda listened spellbound as Assistant Supt. Yvonne Davis read Dr. Seuss’ “The King’s Stilts.”

“When somebody from out of school reads to them, they realize reading is something everybody enjoys,” Principal Brian McKernan said. “It’s not something they do only in school. It’s for life.”

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In Santa Ana, school board members John Palacio and Audrey Yamagata-Noji read to students at Monte Vista, and at Martin Elementary, children read about “Juan Ramon”--or, as he is better known in English, Sam I Am of “Green Eggs and Ham” fame.

Just as in the English version, Juan Ramon’s friend does not like green eggs and ham--not with a house or with a mouse--or in his case, not with a Casaton or with a Raton.

Principal Roxanna Owings read that version to first- and second-graders with a tall Cat in the Hat cap perched atop her head.

“I told the kids, this is the one I grew up with,” Owings said. “My parents made me read it to my little brother to practice reading.”

At Martin, all the children were asked to pick out their favorite books and the school had door-decorating contests and book floats created out of shoe boxes for an imaginary parade .

Angela Gomez, a seventh-grader from Imperial Middle School in La Habra, listened intently while Councilman David McCauley read from Dr. Seuss’ tongue twister “Oh Say Can You Say.”

“I’m excited ‘cause I’ve never met him before,” she said.

Times correspondents Deepa Bharath, Young Chang and Kenneth Ma contributed to this story.