NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The theme of "Yertle the Turtle," a bossypants king who tramples other turtles, wasn't lost on second-graders at Brayton Elementary School.
"He's a bully!" more than a few shouted when Mayor Richard Alcombright asked the children to describe the turtle who wanted to be higher than the moon.
Their sympathies lay with Mack the turtle, who kept asking Yertle to give his subjects a break as they stacked higher and higher to keep Yertle aloft. Until Mack burped, sending the tower of turtles — and Yertle — into the mud.
Rather, said one little boy, "Mack should be king because he's nice."
The afternoon reading was part of the Read Across America initiative held annually on the birthday of Springfield author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. It's been promoted by the National Education Association since 1997 to encourage adult leaders in the community to role model the importance of reading to schoolchildren.
Elected officials are often asked to read to students during this week, and they often choose a book by Dr. Seuss. Gov. Charlie Baker read "Green Eggs and Ham" at Kittredge School in North Andover; Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer and District Attorney David Capeless also read to students at Capeless Elementary.
Alcombright was invited by teaching assistant Cheryl Witherell. Brayton teacher Tracy Piekos said a lot of community members had been coming in to read to the children, including "lots of mommies and daddies."
The mayor selected Suess' "Yertle the Turtle" to read.
"When my kids were little and I read to them, it was their favorite," he told the second-graders from Piekos and Linda Johnson's classes who were clustered around him.
Yertle thought he was better than all the other turtles, he said, and that wasn't right.
"You're all here today and you're all friends," the mayor said, and like Mack, "you want to stand up for each other."
Before he arrived, the children in Piekos' class showed the different books they had and the Dr. Seuss book marks they were given. They weren't sure how many books they'd read, but it definitely ranged between 117 and one million.
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