National Cookie Cutter Week

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Playing-Hooky-for-National-Cookie-Cutter-Week.mp3 Author Heather Tomasello Air Date 12/1/2005 National Cookie Cutter Week Transcript This is National Cookie Cutter Week, reminding me that the winter holiday season is fast approaching. It just doesn’t feel like the holidays until I’ve burned at least two sheets of gingerbread men and taken a “Cookie Hookie […]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow: Premiere of “Annie”

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/I-love-ya-tomorrow-Annies-Anniversary.mp3 Author John Cech (read by Heather Tomasello) Air Date 4/20/2001 Tomorrow and Tomorrow Transcript Today marks the anniversary of the Broadway debut of the musical Annie. As a kid, I was introduced to this scrappy orphan not through the play but the 1982 movie version, with the unforgettable Carol […]

New Science Books

Heather Tomasello has a few suggestions today about some new science books.

Women’s History Sites

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Womens-History-Sites.mp3 Author Heather Tomasello Air Date 3/14/2005 Women’s History Sites Transcript March is Women’s History Month, an especially appropriate time for you and your children to visit several websites that explore the dynamic roles that women have played in the past and continue to play in contemporary American society. The […]

Monopoly Day

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Monopoly-Day.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 8/22/2005 Monopoly Day Transcript Tomorrow is Monopoly Day, celebrating the world ‘s best-selling board game. Since its development during the height of the American Depression in 1934 by Pennsylvanian Charles B. Darrow, more than 200 million copies of the game have been sold in […]

International Friendship Week

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/International-Friendship-Week.mp3 Author Heather Tomasello Air Date 2/20/2001 International Friendship Week Transcript This is International Friendship Week. What can be more thrilling than receiving a postcard from a friend from another country thousands of miles away, with its mysterious journey and exotic postage stamps? For years, when I was a teenager, […]

Nelly Bly

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Nelly-Bly.mp3 Author Heather Tomasello (read by Rita Smith) Air Date 1/25/2001 Nelly Bly Transcript On this day in 1889 Nellie Bly, a twenty-five year old reporter for The New York World received a hero’s welcome in Jersey City. A crowd of over 300 gathered to greet her, cannons boomed, and […]

National Whiner’s Day

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/National-Whiners-Day.mp3 Author Heather Tomasello Air Date 12/26/2000 National Whiner’s Day Transcript Today is National Whiner’s Day — sadly, often an all too appropriate name for the day after Christmas, when sometimes even the most thoughtful presents only seem to elicit groans of discontent. There’s a long history in children’s books […]