Thank you, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco - Picturebook

I love books and I have learned through time that books typically love me in return. A book can become a true friend in a time of need. It will allow you to laugh with it and cry with it and even become the best of friends with it. Books are like friends that we can return to over and over again for solace and understanding in a world so full of struggles. Patricia Polacco’s Thank you, Mr. Falker is a dear friend to me. I read this book every year, when we read The Keeping Quilt from our basal reader. And even though I read this book every year, I still choke up and tear a bit at the end of the story. I try to maintain self-control and pose for the purpose of my third grade students who usually equate tears to sadness and sorrow, but sometimes I just let them flow. When I read the part at the end about how Patricia Polacco (the struggling Trisha learning to read) many years later walks up to Mr. Falker at a wedding and thanks him, I crack. I still believe that the most profound words in history are usually the simplest, and Polacco does justice with these that follow. “He hugged me and asked me what I did for a living. ‘Why, Mr. Falker,’ I answered. ‘I make books for children…Thank you, Mr. Falker. Thank you’” (Polacco, 1998). I mean, how could any teacher read this and not ball? I’m tearing up right now! If there is someone out there who can handle it with elegance, I really don’t think I want to meet them. This book is meant to make teachers cry!

I have read several Polacco books and love her easy style that she weaves for the reader. She writes from her life and what she knows, much like Cynthia Rylant. She has a rich heritage that has shaped her and who she has become. Throughout all of her books the reader is always left with the feelings of an appreciation towards family and others in life. It is almost like all of her books are a testament to the one’s who have molded and shaped her along the way. What a great way to receive a thank you card!

I was a child who had an extreme difficulty in learning to read, but I wanted to read so badly. My mother would work with me and I had a first grade teacher who would work with me and eventually it clicked. When I finally read my own chapter book by myself, I was overjoyed. My mother would let me stay up late at night and read in bed. I believe, to this day, that the best place to read is in bed. Reading takes you places and allows dreams to become reality. I dream at night in bed with my eyes closed and dream in the day with my eyes glued to a book. Both types of dreams feed who I am, who I want to become, and where I want to go. Therefore, I can sympathize with the author in her feelings of difference in not being able to pick up a book and immediately read it at an early age. I love that she has worked to overcome her learning disability and is here today, writing and informing people that you can be what you want to be, despite the odds. One day I want to be able to write a book (I want to be a writer, I just am not really sure where to start) that thanks those in my life who have molded me. But for now I can say, Thank you, Ms. Polacco. Thank you, for writing a book that touched my heart!