Say hello to Flat Garren

I got something really cool in the mail today. A big white envelope containing a.) a laminated, cut-out, hand-drawn figure of a little boy, obviously created by a kid; and b.) a booklet labled "Flat Garren's Journal."

(Flat Garren and his journal. In the journal: photo of Uncle Brian driving though Arizona, apparently with Flat Garren in the back seat.)

Turns out that my 7-year-old nephew, Garren, and the rest of his first-grade class in Kentucky are working on a special project in response to a book called Flat Stanley. According to a note from Garren's teacher, Flat Stanley is the story of a boy who gets squished by a falling bulletin board. When he wants to visit his family and friends, Stanley's parents fold him up in an envelope and drop him in the mail.

My nephew and his classmates made flat versions of themselves to send out to relatives. Each family member is supposed to spend a week with Flat Garren, document his experiences through stories and photos, and then ship the flat boy and his journal on to another relative. Part of the purpose of the project is for the first-graders to get a sense of geography--they're going to map out all the places their flat counterparts have been.

So far, Flat Garren has visited my brother Joe and sister-in-law Jen in Chicago, where he saw the Sears Tower and the Buckingham fountain. Then he went to Arizona to hang with my brother Brian. Thank goodness, because Brian--who moved to AZ a few months ago to be near his girlfriend and then promptly got dumped by said girlfriend--needs the company. Now the flat boy's in our neck of the woods.

And my girls are darned excited about it. Anna says she's taking Flat Garren to school for share day this Friday. And apparently he'll accompany us tomorrow to our every-Wednesday restaurant hangout. And who knows where else he'll go this week.

Look for an update on the Adventures of Flat Garren as He Explores a Flat Midwestern City!