I had picked up and put down this book in one of the education sections of a chain bookstore several times over the last couple of years, but just couldn’t quite believe the endorsement by Lynne Cox on the front that reads, “There are books … that stay with you all your life—Elaine’s Circle will be one of them.” Boy, was I wrong not to believe it!

The cold, snowy, rainy, February weekend I bought Elaine’s Circle, hoping for comfort food, I read half of it on Sunday and the other half late into a miserable, howling, late Wednesday, wintry-mix, begging the weather gods for a snow day that never came. Blearly-eyed, Thursday morning, I carried the fullest teacher’s heart into school I can ever remember in nearly forty years of Februarys with children in classrooms.

You see, I had had the privilege to have been in the presence of a Teacher who knew always what was most important in the class at any given time, for the class as a whole and for particular children, and especially for one particular child this particular year. I also had the privilege to read a Writer who, by seeing teachers, children, and a school and community the way he did, cleared my eyes this Thursday … I hope for a long time.

I thought, too, what a gift if every teacher who loves Responsive Classroom could read this book even though those words never appear even once in it. But, then, of course, every teacher, every principal, every parent, every human being will be touched, moved, changed, empowered by reading Elaine’s Circle. Lynne Cox was right.