Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
Flat Stanley learns about Alaska from Miss Kitty.

Flat Stanley Visits Alaska
By Stanley Lambchop
www.flatstanley.thebulletin.ws

What I've learned, so far...

Nick Spalding, a 4th grader in Mrs. Schraub's class at Northern Hills Elementary in San Antonio, Texas, sent me to Alaska more than a month ago. He told me my guide and teacher would be a Miss Kitty ... but I didn't know she really was a kitty. Well, what does a cat know about Alaska, I might have thought ... but it turns out that this cat knows a lot about it. After all, she has lived in Alaska her whole life!

It takes a long time to explore Alaska, because Alaska is BIG ... bigger than Texas, even ... more than twice as big as Texas, Miss Kitty said. I thought she was just giving me a hard time, but it turned out to be true. Alaska is almost two and a half times as big as Texas. Alaska and Texas have a lot in common ... especially the wide open spaces with not many people living there.

One of the things I like about Alaska is that Alaskans seem to take kids seriously. Benny Benson, the Native American boy who designed Alaska's state flag in 1926, was only 13 years old -- a 7th grader! And I think it's one of the prettiest state flags I've seen.

Benny said, "The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaska flower. The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly of the Union. The dipper is for the Great Bear -- symbolizing strength." Here is a picture of the Alaska flag. (That's not Benny beside the flag; it's me!)


Click here to read Alaska Fun Facts, see a map, and hear the music to Alaska's flag song: http://www.alaskasbest.com/facts.htm

It gets really cold in Alaska in the winter -- the record low winter temperature is 80 degrees below zero in the north. Alaska has warm weather, too -- the record high summer temperature is 100 degrees above zero in the middle of the state. Summer days are very long. They call Alaska the Land of the Midnight Sun, because in summer the sun stays up all night in northern Alaska and most of the night farther south. That makes flowers and vegetables and crops grow very fast -- and very big.

Click here to see me at the Alaska State Fair and The Giant Cabbage Weigh-off.

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