Open Bicycle

One of my favorite lazy-afternoon things to do is peruse McSweeney’s online.  Always good for a witty laugh, the David Eggers-run magazine offers up the perfect combination of cultural introspection and unblushing trash, which always makes for a poignant and entertaining read.

Usually I head straight for the Lists, but today our friend Sarah alerted us to a project out of 826 Valencia, Eggers’ national literacy and tutoring initiative, that features elementary school children’s letters and pictures to President-Elect Obama.  The letters have been collected in a new book, “Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: A Collection of Kids’ Letters to President Obama,” and a few selected letters are up on the McSweeney’s website.  (This also showed up in today’s NY Times.)

Our favorite was (of course) this one that mentions the awesomeness of bikes:

Dear President Obama,

I want to meet you at my tutoring program with my teacher, Bonnie. Did you ever go to a tutoring program after school like me? What age are your daughters? Are they 11 years old like me? Are you going to help people like my parents find good jobs? I want to tell you that I learned to ride my bike. That is good because I get exercise and play with my friends. It would be cool if everybody rode bikes, because they don’t use gasoline and they don’t make the air dirty. If I were a president, I would give people jobs.

Furthermore,

Karla Mora, age 11
Los Angeles