Providence Christian Academy's First Annual Mark Twain Festival

October, 2008, marks the beginning of Providence Christian Academy's Mark Twain Festival. Why do we have a festival honoring someone who has two of the top five most-banned books in America? We honor Mark Twain for several reasons:

1. As a Classical school, we love great books which teach the true, the good and the beautiful. This does NOT mean that every book in our canon does not have false, bad and ugly elements. There are certainly lies and ugly topics in Mark Twain's books. However, as a CHRISTIAN Classical school, we read these wonderful books and critique them from a Christian perspective. To be a Classical school means we do not censor politically-incorrect books, but we critique them and profit from them.

2. As a Classical school, we love great books and encourage our students (and our families) to be readers. Therefore, even our community festivals encourage reading. We not only believe reading is important to obtain good test scores, we want to expose our community to great works of literature so that they will learn to love great books and will become life-long readers. We cannot think of many better books to read than Mark Twain's works.

3. As a Classical school located in the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area, we can celebrate a local icon and learn from him. The mighty Mississippi not only runs through many of Twain's great works and his biography, it also runs through our community. We can see part of ourselves portrayed in Twain's books-- from the sometimes overly-stern but loving Aunt Polly, to the risk-taking swashbuckler Tom Sawyer, to the rhetorically gifted King and Duke, to the wise but suffering runaway slave Jim. When we read Twain, we read keen insights into the human experience. Although we are separted from Twain by many decades, we do share the same geographical home, and we can relate to many of his observations about our lives on the Mississippi.

How does the Mark Twain Festival look at Providence Christian Academy?

Wednesday, October 1: Dress-up Day (Characters of Tom Sawyer); Design-and-Build life size rafts due at PCA for judging; Fifth Grade Jumping Frog Contest at 12:15 in the cafeteria

Thursday, October 2: Dress-up Day (Characters of Huck Finn); Raft Race at Creve Coeur Lake at 12:30 p.m.;

Friday, October 3: Oratory Contest at 10:30 a.m. ("The Importance of Being a Good Liar"). In the spirit of Mark Twain, who said, "I never let school get in the way of my education," we will have early dismissal at 11:30 a.m.

Click here to read Mark Twain's classic short story, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."