Carter Gregotski pulls a chair over to the backyard fence, waits for his pint-sized neighbour to peer over the top, and begins to read aloud from a book. This is what story time looks like now for Carter, 9, and Heather Hawkins, 5, in this era of school closures and social distancing brought on by the spread of COVID-19.
These next-door neighbours, who normally attend Humbercrest Public School, also happen to be reading buddies — a program at many schools in which an older child is matched with a younger one for book sessions.
Unable to keep up weekly story-time sessions at their school near Jane St. and Bloor St. W., Carter’s parents planted the idea that he continue reading to Heather, but do so over the backyard fence. After all, Carter and his brother Nolan, 5, were often outside at the same time as Heather and her brother Hunter, 7, each set of siblings playing in their yards — sometimes in parallel and sometimes all together in socially distant fashion, such as by tossing a ball over the fence.
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