BRISTOL, Tenn. — The children of Joanne Johnson’s fourth-grade class were engrossed Friday morning as Connie O’Dell read Dr. Seuss’ “If I Ran the Circus.”
O’Dell was one of many at Avoca Elementary School and other Bristol, Tennessee, elementary schools who participated in Read Across America. The nationwide reading celebration is held every year in connection with Dr. Seuss’ birthday, which is today.
At Avoca, there were 50 readers — including police officers, soldiers, city officials and athletes — who were split between the school’s 23 classrooms.
The other guest reader for Johnson’s class was Isaiah Curry, a basketball player for King University. He read about James Naismith, the founder of basketball, to the class of 16 students, some dressed like characters from Dr. Seuss books.
Avoca Librarian Sarah Cross said the school built up to the day all week. Lunches were themed around Dr. Seuss, and each day was given a name such as wacky Wednesday and Thursday, which was Green Eggs and Ham Day.
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She added that the school held a contest to see how many books each classroom could read by the end of the day, and the class that read the most will receive a Dr. Seuss prize on Monday.
Read Across America is one of the ways the school tries to promote literacy among the school’s students, Cross said.