For some time we have been adding days, weeks, or months of celebration and remembrance to our national calendar, some of them amusing or frivolous, others earnest and important, others profoundly serious. Truly, as you’ll see from these stories, we do need those cultural moments to celebrate and to contemplate.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/National-Etiquette-Week.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/19/2005 Etiquette Week Transcript When I was in 6th grade, my parents sent me off for dancing classes — in a brand new suit and tie, complete with white gloves. The purpose of these excruciating events every two weeks during the winter was to […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Pick-and-Shovel-Poet.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/16/2005 Biographers Day Transcript It’s Biographers Day today, in honor of the first meeting in London, in 1763, of James Boswell and that formidable man of letters, Samuel Johnson, who would soon become the subject of Boswell’s celebrated biography. We usually think of biographies […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/The-Simple-Joys-of-the-Postcard.mp3 Author Ramona Caponegro Air Date 5/5/2005 Postcard Week Transcript For many small children, receiving mail is a thrill. They eagerly admire the look of their own names on the front of the envelope or on the back of the postcard, exclaim over the picture or illustrations, and insist on […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Of-New-Zealand-and-Kiwis.mp3 Author Lauren Brosnihan Air Date 2/15/2005 Of New Zealand and Kiwis Transcript On February 6th New Zealanders celebrate a national holiday. On and off during the 20th century it was called both Waitangi Day and New Zealand Day in commemoration of the signing of the Waitangi Treaty in 1840. […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Valentines-Day-with-the-Beatles.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 2/14/2005 Valentine’s Day with the Beatles Transcript It’s Valentine’s Day, a day for flowers, and chocolates, and, of course, for observations about love — like eight-year-old Dave who says, “Love will find you even if you are trying to hide from it. I been […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Love-to-Langston.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 2/1/2005 Love to Langston Transcript It’s the beginning of Black History Month, and it’s also the birthday of one of America’s best-known African American poets, Langston Hughes, who was born in 1902. He’s the subject of a recent biography for young people, Love to […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Winter-Carnivals.mp3 Author Lauren Brosnihan Air Date 1/20/2005 Winter Carnivals Transcript Bears may hibernate throughout the winter but children and adults with a child’s imagination and immunity from the cold embrace the activities of winter and join in snow and ice festivals and winter carnivals around the world. There are toboggan […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/A-Dream-of-Freedom.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 1/17/2005 A Dream of Freedom Transcript It’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and his life and death are central to a new book for young people by Diane McWhorter called A Dream of Freedom, The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968. This […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/An-Atlas-for-the-Holidays.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 12/17/2004 An Atlas for the Holidays Transcript The shelves and display tables at book and discount stores are overloaded with children’s books during the holidays. One hardly knows where to begin: there are new series of books for younger children that are meant to […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/The-Thanksgiving-Dinner-That-Flew.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 11/25/2004 The Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away Transcript “A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away” is a poignant story about a cranky gander and a beloved son lost at sea that appeared in the juvenile periodical St. Nicholas in November, 1883. Hester is a young girl arriving […]