Abstract

After reading Barbara William’s picture book Albert’s Impossible Toothache, Jana Mohr Lone’s fourth grade students at Whittier Elementary School in Seattle discussed the relationship between telling a lie, telling the truth, and making a mistake, and how we know that we are talking about the same thing when we talk with someone. The discussion led to an exploration of why the things children say are often less likely to be believed than what adults say. This section contains six fourth grade students’ responses to the question: “Are children more or less trustworthy than adults?” These answers, the question they are responding to, and the book which inspired the discussion, all offer possibilities for further discussion.