Some days you just need to curl up with a good book, am I right?  When you’re 2, 3 or 4 years old, some days you need to curl up with a lot of books and at Harbor City School, today was one of those days.  We read so many books this morning!  Between Peter, our parent teacher, Christina, and myself, I think we each read 5 or more books apiece!  At Circle Time, we enjoyed a book that Gigi brought in to share called A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon.

This story tells the tale of a young girl named Camilla who loves lima beans but, concerned that all of her friends who hate lima beans will make fun of her, she pretends that she hates them and won’t eat them.  The next day, full of anxiety about fitting in on the first day of school, she wakes up to discover that she’s come down with a case of the stripes all over her body!  She arrives at school and is teased for her condition.  Just when she think she can’t take any more teasing, she recites the pledge of allegiance and her stripes turn into red, white, and blue stars and stripes!  Camilla’s skin slowly turns into any print, pattern, or texture she thinks about.  Her condition becomes so distracting that principal asks her to stay home from school!  Doctors, experts, and specialists are all dumb-founded by Camilla’s case.  Finally, a kind old woman, who curiously resembles a strawberry, encourages her to eat some lima beans and as soon as she does, she is cured!  It turns out that being anyone other than her true self was far worse than any teasing she may have gotten for just being herself.

The children love this story because the illustrations are just so silly!  On one page, Camilla looks like a stick of Fruit Stripes gum, and on the next she looks like the American flag!  Her skin changes so dramatically that every page is full of laughs.  Beyond the humor, the heart of the story is very applicable to many of our Tugboats.  As we continue to grow and increase our enrollment, many children face school time anxiety.  New students are challenged to adapt to a new environment with new friends and new routines.  Old friends