Looking Back - It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It by Robert Fulghum

Nonfiction

1998 Ballantine Books

Read in December 2000

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Show-and-Tell was the very best part of school for me, both as a student and as a teacher.

As a kid, I put more into getting ready for my turn to present than I put into the rest of my homework. Show-and-Tell was real in a way that much of what I learned in school was not. It was education that came out of my life experience.

As a teacher, I was always surprised by what I learned from these amateur hours. A kid I was sure I knew well would reach down into a paper bag he carried and fish out some odd-shaped treasure and attach meaning to it beyond my most extravagant expectation.

Again and again I learned that what I thought was only true for me . . . only valued by me . . . only cared about by me . . . was common property. The principles guiding this book are not far from the spirit of Show-and-Tell. It is stuff from home--that place in my mind and heart where I most truly live.

P.S. This volume picks up where I left off in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, when I promised to tell about the time it was on fire when I lay down on it.

My Original Thoughts (2000):

Pretty good, but not as good as All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I enjoyed the story about the box of "Good Stuff." Also, his list of recommendations (p. 90) and motherly thoughts (p. 101)

My Current Thoughts:

I wish I had been more specific about what I enjoyed about those particular essays in this book. They are long forgotten after 20 years.