Jamal Changes Into an Elephant, 4th Grade
Jamal Changes Into an Elephant, 4th Grade
2005-01-18
So it's fourth grade and the hottest rage is those Animorph books...yeah...pretty much a loser. But anyway...


I was "famous" in my fourth grade class for my drawing skills, so I would offer to make drawings for people. Since Animorphs were really "cool" I thought I would draw people changing into animals.


Kids would come by my desk and tell me what animal they liked, and I would draw them. One day, this kid Jamal asked me to draw him changing into an elephant.


I liked Jamal, he was cool, but I thought of something: I'd never drawn an African American person before. I had no idea how to do it. I wanted to warn him of my lack of experience, so I started:


"Uh...Jamal, I'm going to draw the picture and everything, but uh...I don't know...if I'm going to be able to do...uh...the skin...the darkness..."


So that was one of my first uncomfortable experiences. But I was a little kid...it didn't matter.


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