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March 17, 2016
Joni Oncale faced a captivated audience, their minds full of wonder as to where her words would lead them next.
She told her listeners about glikks and yekks, spazzes and zatzes. Each new word was another tide bringing a wave of delight across the crowd’s face.
Oncale, a member of the Bayou Board of Realtors, was not telling buyers about the latest contraptions in a high-tech home. Instead, she was at Southdown Elementary, reading Dr. Seuss’s “On Beyond Zebra!” to a group of kindergarteners. The book takes readers on a journey beyond the normal alphabet, showing them the 20 letters that come after that.
“Yuzz-a-ma-tuzz? Is that a word?” Oncale asked.
“Noooo!” the kids responded, backed up by their furious head shaking.
Oncale found herself at her old elementary school by way of her friend and Southdown librarian, Fran Foret. The two studied education together at Nicholls State University, and Foret asked Oncale to come down to Southdown and read as part of the school’s weeklong celebration of Read Across America Day, happening every year on Dr. Seuss’s birthday of March 2.
Oncale was one of many guest readers dropping by Southdown’s library. Foret, a server for 18 years, knows many members of the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce from her old profession. She had readers slated for all six classes each day that week, with guests ranging from local bank managers to Judge Juan Pickett. Though pre-K students don’t visit her in the library, Foret still managed to schedule local firefighters to read in the cafeteria.
“To get them the read, you’ve got to read to them first, then they get into it. I kind of make them act it out sometimes. I read it first, then I say, ‘Okay, let’s act it out.’ They really enjoy that, then they try to read on their own,” Foret said. •
