A Crush

My seventh graders and I read "The Crush" by Cynthia Rylant. For some reason, we didn't read this story last year. And now, we've found a treasure. Cynthia Rylant creates such wonderful characters who captivated our imagination. We loved the gentle spirit of Ernie, the Mentally Disabled man who has a crush on Delores. Delores captivated my imagination with her tattoo of a coyote and the gentle mustache on her upper lip. Students giggled at the thought of a woman with a mustache, and I did too.

I told them about a childhood memory of the yellow church and a little old lady with a real mustache standing outside. I'd stare at her through the backseat window of my mom's car and wonder about her mustache. Then, I laughed and told them that if she looked up, she probably would have seen me with my nose pierced to the window making a flat face.

This story was the kind of story that made us sigh... And love the characters... And sigh at the beauty of life. How lucky we are that writers like Cynthia Rylant open our eyes to these stories.