Books for the Obama Girls
By: Priscilla Luong
Updated: December 9, 2008
It's an art project that went from a classroom at Bonham Elementary School, to President-Elect Obama's daughters in Chicago, and when Carson Cole told his friends about it.
"They didn't believe me!" says Cole.
After reading "The Alphabet Tree" by Leo Leoni, first graders in Deborah Kemp's class created picture books for Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Kemp says, "we wanted to send that to President-Elect and his daughters because it had the message of peace on earth and goodwill toward all men."
Students created not one, but two picture books, one to take home and another to send to the University of Chicago's Lab School, where the girls are students.
"At first, I worried that they would think, 'oh no, we're having to do this again," says Kemp about her students, "but when I explained to them why we were doing it, they were more than happy."
Alexis Sansome is another first grader in Kemp's class, she says, "it took us a long time because we had to do thirteen pages."
Making the books was a tedious process, but Sansome did not mind. She says she enjoys working on the collages, drawing and watercolor paintings on each page, especially the color washed pages created with watercolors and crayons.
"We got to wash over a little bit of the pictures, and when we washed over, it looked really cool!" says Sansome.
The class hopes the books will help make the holidays extra special for the Obama girls. Aside from the picture books, students also included letters, pictures of their class, and an autographed copy of "The Alphabet Tree" for the Chicago Lab School's Library.
Kemp says, "we hope that they will enjoy that as much as we enjoyed doing it for them, and that we'll get some type of response, even if it's just a letter!"
