Bus-Riding Dog Inspires Children’s Book
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File photo. (Anat0ly/iStock/Thinkstock)(SEATTLE) — A black Labrador who rides Seattle buses on her own motivated a class of Colorado sixth graders to write a children’s book from the dog’s perspective.
The 2-year-old dog named Eclipse made headlines in January for riding the bus solo to a dog park.
When Whitney Yeager, a teacher at Laredo Middle School in Aurora, Colorado, saw a story about Eclipse by ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle, she assigned a creative group project to her language arts class: each student would contribute a line to a children’s book, written from the dog’s point of view.
Yeager said the purpose of the narrative was to practice figurative language.
“Every single word in that book is their writing,” Yeager told ABC News Friday.
One line of the book reads: “My paws gingerly walk along the concrete sidewalk until my eyes meet the bus stop sign. I was relieved when I made it just in time to the bus stop,” according to KOMO.
“They’re so excited about it,” Yeager said. “It’s their own. It was an authentic, finished project.”
Eclipse’s owner, Jeff Young, said in January that Eclipse started riding the bus with him to the dog park, but eventually she jumped on the bus on her own.
“We went all the time, then sometimes she got on the bus before me because I’m talking or distracted,” he said.
Young said he follows closely behind Eclipse on a later bus and then goes home with her.
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