Celebrating Imagination and Creativity
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Big Universe in Personal Experiences, Reviews.
Tags: book review, creativity, imagination, Reading
Roxaboxen, a hill in Yuma, Arizona, littered with rocks and wooden boxes, serves as the setting of this children’s book, which tells a true tale of one child’s active imagination. “With the aid of her mother’s childhood manuscript, the memories of relatives, and letters and maps from former inhabitants of Roxaboxen, author Alice McLerran recreated the magical world…,” in this storybook, “…as if she played there herself.” McLerran.
I’ll always remember the day my son returned home from third grade, after his teacher read Roxaboxen, by Alice McLerran, to her classroom of children. He couldn’t stop talking about the imaginary town, created simply from rocks, broken pottery, colored glass, and old wooden boxes. There were: buried treasures, a Main Street, houses, and dishes, a town hall, a Mayor, plenty of shops, money, a bakery, ice cream parlors, cars, a jail, police, horses, and a cemetery. Not only does Roxaboxen allow children to feel like they can participate in making a grown-up place all their own, students might just venture to create a town, which they can run – in the classroom, at a park, in the basement, or in the backyard.
Roxaboxen serves as a favorite childhood book in our home, as our son is now 12, and he continues to create imaginary towns, tree houses, recyclable villages, European cities, all of which found their roots in the works of Alice McLerran. Roxaboxen is “A celebration of the ability children have to create, even with the most uncompromising materials, a world of fantasy so real and multidimensional that it earns a lasting place in memory.” McLerran.
Dear rglawe,
Imagine my surprise when “subbing” in a classroom that utilized (ugh!) Open Court, that the entire book of Roxaboxen appeared as the lesson for the day!!
I love that book and agree that it reflects so many wonderful creative possibilities for children. I hope that kids today still have opportunities to build and explore as the children in the book demonstrate. Do parents today still let kids mess up the living room sofa pillows and create exciting environments? I hope so!!
Wzacuto