Yeah, I guess not the message we wanted to send back to the second graders. I asked Michael, “Why don’t we photograph him lying on the ground next to an empty bottle of Jack Daniels or exiting a strip club with a black bar superimposed over his eyes?” Perhaps Flat Stanley got into some trouble here in B-ton. I think I scared my cousins with my crush on this two-dimensional, mini-man and maybe got a little ‘too’ creative with my ideas.

We took him around town, photographing him in front of the Indiana University Stadium and other local landmarks. In 2005, more than 6,000 classes from 47 countries took part in the Flat Stanley Projectīack in Bloomington, Michael and Nancy received their very own Flat Stanley from their goddaughter Faye, a second grader at Increase Miller Elementary School in Golden’s Bridge, New York. Now teachers and their students around the world are getting to know Flat Stanley and each other. Those children then write about their special visitor and his adventures with his hosts.

Students who participate in the project read the book and then design their own flat character and send him to children, friends, or family in other states or countries.

The project connects children and classrooms around the world via a character who, in the original story, gets squashed accidentally by a bulletin board (ouch!) and then discovers he is flat enough to fit inside an envelope and travel the world (hmmm…where can I find a big bulletin board?!). In 1995, Dale Hubert, a 3 rd Grade teacher in London, Ontario, Canada, began the Flat Stanley Project based on the 1964 book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. It turns out he was a traveler just like me. While spending a few days at my cousins’ place in Bloomington, I met a new and wonderful man.

Flat stanley activities