Or how the enchanted wood I remembered as a child was just a sparse group of trees
I moved to Plainfield NJ when I was 9 years old, starting the 4th grade. It was a new state (we had been in VA for 4 years before this, so I went to kindergarten, 1st-3rd grades there). It was a new school too and it was a more diverse mix than I was used to. There were African American kids in my school and I was excited to meet them, thanks to a progressive and positive mother who impressed upon us not to pay attention to the racists in our Virginia neighborhood who wanted to burn a cross on the new black family’s lawn! In fact, my first crush that year was on a small dear African American boy named Mark.
I would find out that there were Jewish kids too. And since I had been taught in Sunday School that Jesus was Jewish, I thought they must be pretty cool.
It was a spectacular school year — our teacher Ms Raffinello was a fun and dear instructor and I remember enjoying almost every day there. She encouraged us to read at our own pace and advance as we saw fit, following a system called SRA or similar. I remember loving it — it was color-coded and I was enjoying being in the purple books.
At one point, she had us writing and illustrating our own books. I loved this! It was such a creative classroom.
