Posted on 12/02/2004 7:32:14 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - More than a year into the job it's still an identity crisis for Maria Shriver.
When an elementary school student asked her Thursday, "Are you like the governor?" she answered, "That's a really loaded question," explaining that she's the governor's wife.
"That makes me the first lady of the state," she said. "Do you know what that is? No? Me neither."
While Shriver continues trying to find her role as California's first lady, she spent part of Thursday doing a reading appearance before 20 second and third graders, while also taping messages for NBC, her former employer.
The occasion: a reading program sponsored by the nation's largest publisher and distributor of children's books. Shriver read "The Polar Express" aloud in a classroom and talked about reading.
"I want to know if all of you are going to go home tonight and read, read, read?" she asked after finishing the book in the Washington Elementary School classroom of teacher Veasna Nim.
"Remember, the more you read, the smarter you'll get and the better you'll do in life," Shriver, a published children's book author, later told more than 200 kindergartners through fifth graders at the downtown Sacramento school. "You'll get all As if you read a lot."
Shriver's appearance was part of Scholastic Read for 2005, a one-day reading event started in 1999 by New York-based publisher, Scholastic Corp. The company recruits spouses of the nation's governors to read children's books to school classrooms and encourage students to read at least 30 minutes a day.
Like other gubernatorial spouses across the nation, Shriver received 500 books for participating, and donated 250 to the Washington Elementary library. Aides said she donated the other 250 to the Los Angeles-based Leadership Academy, a 195-student charter school that honored Shriver and her father, founding Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver, in October.
The first lady also donated three of her own children's books to the elementary school, including "What's Wrong With Timmy?" "What's Heaven?" and "What's Happening to Grandpa."
After 45 minutes in the classroom, Shriver talked to the entire school about her four children and autographed a student's coat. When asked by one student, "Are you rich?" she answered, "Well, I work and I try to do well. I'm rich in spirit and I'm rich in my kids."
Her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, isn't taking a paycheck from the state, but he was paid $30 million to star in his last starring role in "Terminator 3" last year.
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On the Net:
More about the worldwide reading program: http://teacher.scholastic.com/readfor2005/
At least she didn't say "We are the Governor!"
This should be great for magazine sales!
Does reading on FR qualify ??
And Arnold agrees. Other that or be in dry dock for 2 weeks.
I didn't know that liberals could read....
"Does reading on FR qualify ??"
Absolutely, provided you read real articles and not just vanity posts and "caption this" threads!
You see, this is why I didnt' go into teaching, the kids would have thought I was mean.
READ TO YOUR KIDS!: CS Lewis, Tolkien, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, Frank Peretti, Dickens, R. Louis Stevenson, Richard Scarry, Madeleine, Brother Andrew, The Hiding Place, Bill Peet, THE BIBLE (NIV or NLT).
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