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I have been having a wonderful time doing residences with VSA Florida (formerly Very Special Arts Florida) which is associated with the Kennedy Arts Center.
During May, I worked with 11 students at the Interlachen High School, helping them to create puppet representations of their characters for the play, The Worry Worts; you can see pictures of the final production as well as their puppets in the photo gallery. Later in May at the Yulee Elementary School, the 13 members of the third-fifth grade glass was studying the growth cycle, so I wrote a story called “Growing Taller” and, together, we designed and created the garden in the story and installed it in a portion of their classroom. The story, a song, and their artwork was presented as a culminating activity for parents and administrators on the last day of the residency. Pictures of the garden and final performance can be seen in the photo gallery. Here is the story:
GROWING TALLER, Copyright 2011 Chris Kastle
Once upon a time there was an itty bitty, teeny weenie, little boy who was no bigger than a bean when he was born. So his parents used a walnut shell for a crib and a swatch of cotton for his cover. And such a long time passed, that to his parents, it seemed as if he would never grow any bigger. Now it happened that he was born at the time of year when his parents were planting the garden. They planted blue corn and yellow squash and green peas and ruby-red tomatoes and orange peppers, and, of course, beans, purple beans to be exact! There were grapes vines and strawberries and even a grapefruit tree.
But just when they thought that their son would sleep in the walnut shell forever, he so got much bigger so fast, that it almost seemed liked magic. Why, pretty soon, he was as big as a size six shoe; so then he slept in one of his mother’s shoe boxes with a wash cloth for his cover. Outside, the weather was warmer day by day. Outside, the plants grew higher and higher. And inside, well inside, the boy sprouted up so quickly that, soon, he was big enough to lie comfortably in a large dresser drawer from the very old wooden chest of drawers that had once belonged to his uncle, and the boy used a big Turkish bath towel as a cover.
By and by, the plants grew higher and blossomed and tasseled. And the boy grew so many inches by this time, that he slept on a small wooden pallet on a sumptuous quilt of silky-soft down where he simply sank in every night and since with was summer, he didn’t need a blanket! And then the boy grew tall enough to walk among the plants and watch the fruit and vegetables develop from tiny buds into shapes that changed every day. Why, one day they would be round and then be oblong the next day. And sometimes the flowers transformed right into fruit! He was amazed. And so were his parents. The boy was growing so fast by now he was almost as tall as the corn stalks – why if he kept growing this fast, they weren’t sure where he would fit! He was growing taller by the minute! And the boy and his parents started to worry about him growing taller still. They were all worried about the changes.
Then one day the bright, beautiful sunshine ripened the first tomato of the season. The boy plucked it from the vine and ran into the house to show it to his parents. His mother washed it and cut it and the three of them, the boy and his mother and his father, ate the tomato. It was, perhaps, the most wonderful thing the boy had ever tasted, or that his parents had ever tasted for that matter. And just like that, his whole family knew that the boy wasn’t going to grow any taller for a while, so he didn’t have to worry about where he would sleep. And they also knew that it was okay to for the boy to change and grow and get just as tall as ever he was meant to be!
Please contact me for permission to use the story. Thanks.
Next time: Garvy School and Hastings Summer Camp
DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY NEW CDS ON THE CATALOG PAGE!!!