Mystery Reader

This week K-Pop was a "Mystery Reader" in K-bao's class. The Mystery Reader is a parent who comes in to the class on a given day to share a book or two with the girls, but doesn't reveal his or her identity ahead of time; instead, he gives the girls some clues so the girls can guess who's coming.

The clues are revealed over time and are supposed to get progressively more obvious, and K-Pop's clues included:

• As a child I owned a large dog in a place far, far away
• Your name plus my name = 11 letters
• I have three siblings and none of them live in San Francisco
• I love basketball and my favorite player wears #7, but yours wears #30

Of course, K-bao guessed who it was right away, and badgered K-Pop incessantly in the days ahead of the reading, but K-Pop stayed strong and didn't confess.

The day of, K-Pop read two books to the 2nd graders: Ruby's Wish and Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac. Both are set in China, and with Chinese New Year coming up this week K-Pop and K-Mum thought the subjects apropos. The second book is just a fun animal story, though it alludes to issues like competition and selfishness; the first has much more serious themes around gender discrimination, girls' education, ambition and hard work. Both were fun to read.

K-bao was beside herself with excitement, as she usually is when either K-Pop or K-Mum show up in class. Several times she tried to take over the reading entirely.

Afterwards -- and full credit goes to K-Mum for this idea -- K-Pop passed out red envelopes with chocolate gold coins, but not after the girls learned how to say Xin Nian Kuai Le! And, no surprise -- the coins were a big hit.

Published Author

During her first year in elementary school K-bao made significant progress with her writing, to the point where she officially "published" several short works. Near the end of the school year, the K-folks spent a morning at K-bao's school learning a bit more about her journey as an author. She has come a long way from the when she self-published her first book in late 2014.

The works pictured above include a narrative of her first soccer game, a spooky story about an evil witch, a poetry anthology, and most recently a non-fiction work about her favorite animal, the horse (in a 3-way tie for first place, along with ponies and unicorns).

For the book about horses, K-bao had to spend some time researching her subject. In the process, she learned about the physiology of the horse (205 bones!) as well as distinctions among breeds. (By the way, the reader with a long memory might recall this early post in 2009, when K-bao was first exposed to horses. Clearly her interest has grown quite a bit since then.)

Naturally, the fact that K-bao loves to read has been quite helpful in her overall progression. Over the past year she has devoured countless short chapter books about detectives, rainbows and fairies, ponies and other related topics. It is also certainly true that K-bao's school and first grade teacher have actively fostered in K-bao's class a sense of authorship and a pride in writing.

Young Author

K-bao has advanced significantly as both a reader and writer recently, and indeed has started penning her own little booklets.

Last weekend she decided to write - and illustrate - her first book, admittedly constructed by putting eight or nine staples to two sheets of paper. Subjects ranged from astute observations ("My family is nice") to statements about her own feelings ("I was mad because I got sick") to pronouncements of universal truths ("Love is kind").

In her second book, written shortly thereafter, she invited K-Pop to co-author (but not to co-illustrate - clearly she has formed her own quite accurate opinions already on K-Pop's artistic capabilities).