Afterword
by Bob Wiesner

The Great Blue Journal represents all kinds of wonder and angst. As interesting as the articles are, to most adult readers they are really only shadows of great experiences, footprints of an unnamed beast. But when kids read each other's work, it seems to me that more than just the words come through. They are able to reconstruct some of the magic of the other's experience even when the article is the most basic explanation of what might have been a monumental undertaking. In that way, and countless other ways, the journal lights a new spark every year in our classrooms.

Still, the wonder, the confusion, the frustration and sudden clarity that teachers love as much as kids, cannot be fully captured in any of the articles. It's something that adults long for and hang on to for as long as they can, and something that kids have so much of that they can't imagine another way of being. It's the opening of the world that the journal represents; the kind of opening that is never supposed to be finished.