Dear Sir Obama: Presidential Advice

By JORY JOHN
Published: New York Times, January 15, 2009

Every day after school about 65 children come to our center to get help with their homework. The place is always vibrant, but on Nov. 5, 2008, the 20 tutors in the room essentially played zone defense to keep things in order. For the students, the election of Barack Obama had overturned their world.

The children had been interested in the election all year but few of them, truth be told, really thought Mr. Obama would be elected. When he won, their talk quickly and excitedly turned to what would happen next.

We decided to channel this energy into a writing assignment. We asked our students — not just those in San Francisco, but ones in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; New York; and Seattle — to offer their thoughts, hopes and advice to Mr. Obama in handwritten letters (many of which came with drawings). These were two letters that particularly caught my attention.

Dear President Obama,
Here is a list of the first 10 things you should do as president:
1. Fly to the White House in a helicopter.
2. Walk in.
3. Wipe feet.
4. Walk to the Oval Office.
5. Sit down in a chair.
6. Put hand-sanitizer on hands.
7. Enjoy moment.
8. Get up.
9. Get in car.
10. Go to the dog pound.
— Chandler Browne, age 12, Chicago

1. Make everyone read books.
2. Don’t let teachers give kids hard homework.
3. Make a law where kids only get one page of homework per week.
4. Kids can go visit you whenever they want.
5. Make volunteer tutors get paid.
6. Let the tutors do all the thinking.
7. Make universities free.
8. Make students get extra credit for everything.
9. Give teachers raises.
10. If No. 4 is approved, let kids visit the Oval Office, but don’t make it boring.
— Mireya Perez, age 8, San Francisco


Jory John, program director at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center, is the editor of the forthcoming “Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: A Collection

Let the Right One In

One Sunday morning at 11:00 am I attended the Brattle theatre’s Eye Opener series to watch Let the Right One In. I knew I would not like it. I only went for the free breakfast and to support the group; it would not kill me to stay 30 minutes. When 30 minutes was up I thought hum! I can stay another 20 minutes it’s not a bad movie. I ended up watching the entire movie and loving it; what a surprise! I then read the book from beginning to end in three days; that also was thrilling.

It is a great vampire and coming of age film and beautifully filmed in Sweden. It stays true to the book while leaving out a complete chunk around Eli’s so called father. I think this was a problem but understand that it would have made the film run well over two hours.

Oskar is a 12 year old fragile and very anxious boy that is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates. He seems to have no friends until he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. She is a pale, serious young girl or is she? She/it/he only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. One man is found tied to a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten in the neck.

Being a vampire movie, Blood is the common thread - and for an introverted boy likes Oskar, who is fascinated by gruesome stories, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between Oskar and Eli, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Oskar becomes increasingly aware of the tragic, inhuman dimension of Eli’s plight, but cannot bring himself to forsake her. Frozen forever in a twelve-year-old’s body, with all the burgeoning feelings and confused emotions of a young adolescent, Eli knows that she can only continue to live if she keeps on moving. But when Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can… and what an end it is; wow!!

Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.