In Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris tells about teaching writing to children in western South Dakota. One child draws and writes furiously all during class. When the bell rings, the Indian girl, who the other children pass as though she’s invisible, hands Norris about twenty sheets of paper. After looking them over, Norris smiles and says, “So many poems; you must love to write.”

The girl shifts from foot to foot and weaves her hands in the air. “I don’t have paper at home,” she says, “so I keep them in my head. That’s where they live until I write them down.”

Stories by Kids

Me And The Dolphin

By Shannon Reiners, age 8

Yonkers, New York

One day, I was walking along the sandy beach. It was a beautiful sight. It was so hot, I almost fell asleep. You know what, I really fell asleep. When I woke up, the sun was low in the sky. Suddenly a dolphin was right next to me! I was so happy! I told the dolphin that the next day I would call it so we can play all day tomorrow.

The next day came, and I called it and the dolphin came to me. We had a lot of fun! Sunset came, and I told the dolphin that for the rest of the summer break, I would come and play with it. After two weeks, the dolphin and I became very good friends. It had no name so I named it Lucyana. I think she really liked the name that I gave her. August came, and it was her birthday! August second! That was my birthday too! That day was the best day of my life! We had dolphin cake. After that we had my birthday cake, we both liked the dolphin cake and my cake. She was five years old and I was eight years old. It was a long, long August. Lucyana said I can visit any time I want but she knew that I would not come in the fall and winter. She knew that I would come in the spring and the summer. I knew that too. The last day of summer break, I told Lucyana that tomorrow I had to go back to school. She was sad because I was not going to see her for a long time.

School was over again and I went strait to Lucyana. She was there waiting for me. So we played, just like last year. It was so fun, it was better than last years games! Lucyana said it too. Lucyana was my best friend. Lucyana said that she loved me. I loved her back. She was very friendly to other people and she was very nice too. We did this every summer break, when I got out of school. That was her favorite part. It was my favorite part too.

One spring day, after school, it was raining so Lucyana and I could not play today. We were both sad and unhappy. The next day was a beautiful day, we played as long as we could. One of the games were called dolphin tag. That was our favorite game. Lucyana always won the game. The best thing about it was having fun. That was one of the rules of the games we have played in the past. The second game was called Lucyana soccer. I always won that game. Those were the two common games we have played.

On Friday, we went on an adventure under the sea. We both met a lot of sea animals. For example, we met a snapping turtle and one of her friends. Her name was Juliana. She was kind and loved to play shell freeze tag. One day I was just watching her and she disappeared into the wild and she never forgot me. I never forgot her. Nobody, not even myself knows were she went. I missed her very, very, very much. I cried for a long, long, long time.

I got over it.