MAHANOY CITY - Anyone visiting Mahanoy Area Elementary School on Friday saw many adults and students wearing tall hats with red and white stripes to show that reading is fun.
Mahanoy Area and other school districts participated Friday in the 18th annual "Read Across America," a special school event created in 1998 by the National Education Association and continues to be sponsored by the organization, which represents 3 million members working in education around the country.
The day chosen to promote reading is March 2, the birthday of the late Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, known for his unique style of illustrated children's books told in rhyme. He wrote 46 books, including "Green Eggs and Ham," "The Cat in the Hat" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"
Since Geisel's birthday is today, schools moved the reading day to Friday or Monday.
The school day began with the morning announcement by Maryellen Boyle, language arts teacher for the third and fourth grades, who recited her own poem in Dr. Seuss-style about what would be happening during the day.
From 8:30 to 11 a.m., guest readers from the community visited the school to read a Dr. Seuss story to children from kindergarten through fourth grade. Many readers were retired faculty, school board members Julie Fazio and Colleen Coleman, and members of the community, including Mahanoy City Mayor Nancy Petritsch and police Chief Mark Weikrykas, Mahanoy City Public Library Director Tom Seiberling, and Mahanoy City Postmaster James Mayberry.
The guest readers each went into a classroom and, as the children sat on the floor around them, they read a book and showed the illustrations on each page.
Organizing the day's events was Natalie Zawada, elementary Language Arts Department chairwoman, according to elementary school Principal Susan Scheeler.
"She organizes all our reading events for me," Scheeler said.
"Accelerated Reader is promoting reading over the 3 million book mark," said Zawada, referring to an assessment program that monitors the reading of books and their comprehension by students. "We're involved in that today. We going to try to read and take tests to help beat the 3 million book mark in the United States."
At 1 p.m., the students gathered for an assembly during which Michael McCall, a legislative aide to state Rep. Neal P. Goodman, D-123, read the Dr. Seuss book, "Daisy-Head Mayzie."
"It has an anti-bullying message that falls in line with our anti-bullying kickoff that we started yesterday," Scheeler said.