Your Little Friend the Fifth Grade Book

A remarkable find: a collection of short — very short — stories written by fifth graders at various schools in Buffalo, New York, and published in book form in 1931.

Here’s the introduction:

Dear Fifth Graders:

How do you do! I am the little book that you have made. I have many little stories. [...]

“Schools do not open until the potatoes are harvested.”

Click on the photo to enlarge.

From American Memory at the Library of Congress, this photo was taken by the great Jack Delano in 1940, as part of a Farm Security Administration project.

The original caption was:

Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Me. Schools do not open [...]