Sarah Martin is just beginning to read the children’s book “Tess’s Tree,” to a half-dozen first-graders, sitting on the classroom’s light brown rug, when Victor Dorsinville notices something about the title on the cover.
“The letters are all trees,” the 6-year-old says.
Martin quickly picks up on the observation to involve another 6-year-old boy, Marvin Lasseur, in the conversation.
“You see the leaves and how the letters are all made out of branches? That is pretty cool,” she says.
As Martin reads the book, she asks the children many such questions, getting them to think about the events in the story, and the emotions of the 9-year-old girl who is its main character. The kids talk a lot toward the beginning, and listen more quietly later; at one point Nektaria Muratoglu, 7, moves closer to get a better look.
In the end, the kids all give the story a thumbs-up.
Martin’s class, like each grade at the Riverdale School, is participating this month in a contest tied to the release of “Tess’s Tree.” The book, written by Jess M. Brallier and illustrated by Dedham’s Peter H. Reynolds, tells how the title character’s beloved tree is grievously damaged in a storm. Tess is very sad, until she brings together friends and family for a funeral celebrating the tree’s life.
For the contest, whose deadline is Oct. 31, some Riverdale children are making drawings of their favorite tree, and some are writing essays. Martin’s class began their project by choosing their favorite – a tree by the playground that has little berries – before making paper leaves of various colors – red, green, orange, yellow – with some kids pasting their creations on a brown trunk on yellow cardboard.
After Martin reads the book aloud, they talk about their favorite tree. Martin writes down the qualities they like about it, including its berries, how its leaves change color, and that it is “small, like us.”
She says their project, when completed, will include their leaves, the reasons they like that tree the most, and a photo.
Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
