Published: May 1, 1996

A Balancing Act

Sitting in a jumbled semicircle on the floor around Laura Grenon's rocking chair, the 1st graders listen raptly as their teacher reads The Old Man's Mitten, a big book resting on a nearby easel. During the course of the story, one forest creature after another tries to wriggle into a lost glove.

"What do you think is going to happen?" Grenon asks her students.

"It's going to tear up into pieces," one little girl says. "It's too...