Thank You, Mr. Falker: Dawn Wilcox

For Teacher Appreciation Week: 

In Thank you, Mr. Falker, acclaimed children's book author Patricia Polacco writes of a young girl struggling to learn to read. All the letters appear jumbled and she is teased by classmates. In fifth grade, a new teacher, Mr. Falker, arrives and tells her, '"You're going to read -- I promise you that."

And one spring day ... "almost as if it were magic, or as if light poured into her brain, the words and sentences started to take shape on the page as they never had before.

...The rest of the year became an odyssey of discovery and adventure for the little girl.  She learned to love school.  I know because that little girl was me, Patricia Polacco.

I saw Mr. Falker again some thirty years later .... I told him who I was, and how he had changed my life so many years ago.  

He hugged me and asked what I did for a living.  "Why, Mr. Falker,"  I answered.  "I make books for children.... Thank you, Mr. Falker. Thank you."'

Is there a teacher who would love hearing your thanks?