Stories of Kindness from Around the World

I want to tell you all about Clare.  I refer to her as Little Clare because I know so many Clares.  I have a feeling no matter how old she gets, she'll always be Little Clare to me.

My school goes all the way from classes for five year olds to classes for 18 year olds, with a seperate area for the junior and senior school.  Last year, I bumped into my old year 5 teacher in the library.  My teacher called me over and asked how I was going. Then she told me about Clare. "I have a girl in my year 3 class. Her name's Clare and she reminds me so much of you, Cassie. She seems a little bit lost in class.  Do you think you could come down one lunch time and maybe have a chat to her?" Of course I was very keen to do this and to meet Clare in order to find out how, exactly, she was like me.

Clare turned out to be a pale little girl, slim and small for her age, with beautiful dark eyes and long dark hair in two plaits that reached right down her back.  She had a small face with delicate features and was very quiet. After talking to the 8 year-old for a while, we discovered that we both enjoyed reading and writing short stories.  I recommended the Chronicles of Narnia, explaining that it was a wonderful fantasy series that everyone should read (if you haven't please do so!).

I started vistiting the junior school as often as I could during morning break to read aloud some of the books to Clare.  After a while, other girls started coming to listen too, and I started getting a reputation in the junior school as the "big reading girl'. Some days I didn't read and instead just talked to Clare.  We talked about her friends, school work, books we'd read and things we'd done.  I told her about the work I was doing sometimes and she always surprised me so much with her great intelligence.  We talked about religion and philosophy and other general interest things they don't teach in school at her age.

I still go to see Clare as often as I can.  There are days when I get so excited about Clare, about how brilliant she is and how far she'll go in life.  Excited about how much she understands about the world.  Being with her and talking to her excites me to no end.

I just wanted to share that excitment with you and to encourage everyone to mentor somebody in their life who could use a little bit of support. Oh! and if you have any suggestions of what I should read to her next PLEASE post them!