This year is the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl's classic children's book James and the Giant Peach. In the story, 7-year-old orphan James Henry Trotter escapes his two rotten, abusive aunts by crawling into a giant peach, which rolls, floats and flies him to a new life of wonder and love.
I am reading this book aloud for the first time, and my listeners and I are spellbound by the story, especially the part when the very small old man opens the bag filled with magical crocodile tongues that will help a barren, broken peach tree grow fruit as big as a house.
"There's more power and magic in those things in there than in all the rest of the world put together," says the man. And there is.
While I am reading about the James in the story, I am working with a James in one of my Response to Intervention (RTI) reading groups.
My student James is 10 years old and in the fourth grade. He is growing up in economic poverty, which makes him less healthy and less likely to graduate from high school, Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund, reminds us. He is also less likely to develop emotionally and intellectually at the same pace as his nonpoor peers. It is a rotten, abusive poverty.
James wrote a poem that reflects the world as he sees and lives it:
Anger is red and black,
It smells like gunpowder,
It tastes like bullets,
It sounds like a shot,
It feels like a sharp knife,
It lives in fear.
How much is my real-life James like the James in our story before the giant peach?
As a reading teacher, I hope I am, like the very small old man, unlocking the inner potential.
Every school day, I hold books in front of my James, just as the very small old man held the bag in front of the literary James.
"James, if you learn to read well, then you can do anything,” I whisper to him. "There's more power and magic. ..."
And there is.
James the fourth-grader loves reading now. He is always reading. I love it!
I visited him in his classroom, and his teacher showed me James' big social studies test. He earned a B and was one of only three students who passed the test on the first try.
"It's magical, Mr. Barton," he said with a smile.
That is the power of reading and hard work.
This social studies victory shows his progress. When he came to my classroom as a third-grade student, he read 20 words correctly per minute on a second-grade assessment. Yesterday, he read more than 70 words correctly per minute on a fourth-grade assessment.
My James crawled into the giant peach of literacy. I predict it will take him away from a life of poverty and fear to a new life of wonder and love. I'm thankful to be with him as he rolls, floats and flies along the way.
Barton is an elementary school teacher in South Carolina.
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