Introducing Flat Stanley

This post is for my nephew Ben, who recently sent me this email, dutifully typed by his mother I'm guessing:

"Dear Uncle Jay--
Is Flat Stanley still in India? I have another Flat Stanley in my Flat Stanley book. Bye. Ben"

For those of you not affiliated with the Clinton School, Flat Stanley is a children's book character that the First Lady of Arkansas Ginger Beebe uses to get kids excited about reading and learning about different cultures. She carries a cutout of Flat Stanley with her wherever she goes, and she asked my class to do the same during our international service projects. I am proud to say that my Flat Stanley was expertly decorated by my nephew, so he has every right to demand to know its whereabouts.

Well, Ben, I am happy to report that Flat Stanley is still here with me, and that he is enjoying himself in India. At first he was a little nervous and did not get out much. He instead chose to spend a lot of time sleeping under his mosquito net.

He has started to get more and more adventurous, though. On Monday, for example, he visited the American Center in Kolkata for a conference on Child Labor issues. Below is a picture of him with my classmate Erin:

Erin will be doing a project soon with the younger students at the Loreto Day School, where they will get to decorate their own Flat Stanleys. Third grade students at Rockefeller Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas were nice enough to decorate Flat Stanleys for us to bring to the students here in India, and we will then be taking the ones that the Indian students decorate back to Arkansas - sort of a Flat Stanley pen pal program.

I vow to do a much better job in the future of keeping all of you up to date regarding Flat Stanley's travels and exploits in India, and once again, many thanks go out to Ben for his hard work and decorating - the students here really like him.