Mary Ann Hoberman: And then I wrote a poem called You and I that is in this section. And it was really funny because we were at Chapin School in New York and we read this to little third graders and asked for questions and a little girl raised her hand and said I don’t understand it.
So I saw a little girl and I said let’s see if you can understand it, the title is You and I. And I had a nice little paper easel there so I wrote you, y-o-u, so the children wouldn’t think it was just a U or an ewe and someone raised their hand and said or it could be ooh. And I said it wasn’t that. And then I, the one letter I, not e-y-e. We had to get that straight.
So the poem goes like this. Only one I in the whole wide world and millions and millions of you. But every you is an I to itself and I am a you to you too. But if I am a you and you are an I then the opposite also is true. It makes us both the same somehow, yet splits us each in two. It’s more and more mysterious the more I think it through, every you everywhere in the world is an I, every I in the world is a you. So with the little girl I got her name, so you can… what’s your name?
Linda Winston: Linda.
Mary Ann Hoberman: Your name is Linda. And my name is Mary Ann, right? So only one I in the whole wide world, Mary Ann, right, and millions and millions of you, but every you is an I to itself, and I am a you to you too. And then how did we do this? Then she … did she do the next part? We got it very established that she was an I and I was a you to her I and I was an I and she was a you to my I. And by the end…
Linda Winston: We got the whole group, there must have been 60 children sitting on the floor, and they began to read it as well.
Mary Ann