Begun in 2006 Jumpstart’s Read for the Record is a world-wide endeavor to bring children and librarians, teachers, parents, daycare providers and others who will read the same book, on the same day and discover the power and importance of reading.  Last year, Corduroy by Don Freeman was read to over 700,000 on the same day all around the world.   This year’s selection is Eric Carle’s timeless The Very Hungry Caterpillar.(taken from Jumpstart’s website)

On October 8th, Macksville City Library director, Jody Suiter, went to area classrooms and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to 109 students, in the quest to reach ONE MILLION kids for Jumpstart.  Most kids were familiar with this classic story, and they did a wonderful job finishing each page aloud, saying, “… but he was still hungry!”  They were also good listeners, and received a prize for their participation.  Strawberry licorice was passed out to all the classes when they answered the question,  “what did the very hungry caterpillar eat on Thursday?”  And, just for fun, we also read the book Donald and the …. , by Peter F. Neumeyer & Edward Gorey.  This showed kids that ‘worms’ don’t always turn into beautiful butterflies!!!