Flat Judy

The History of 'Flat Judy'

If any of you have children or grandchildren you may be aware of the series of books entitled ‘Flat Stanley’. These books were written 40 years ago by Jeff Brown. The plot of the book is that the main character, Stanley Lambchop, is flattened when a bulletin board falls on him. Stanley survives and makes the best of his altered state, and soon he is sliding into rooms through the opening at the bottom of closed doors and being kind to his younger brother by playing as a kite for him. Stanley even helps catch some art museum sneak thieves by posing as a painting on the wall. But one special advantage is that Flat Stanley can now visit his friends by being mailed in an envelope.

The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by a Canadian 3rd grade teacher. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by school children to each other as they document what Flat Stanley has done with them. This project provides an opportunity for students to make connections with students of other member schools and individuals. Flat Stanley and his journal is mailed to people and they are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal and take photos of him in different places and then return him to his owner. In 2005, there were more than 6,000 classes from 47 counties that part in the Flat Stanley project.

A while back I had one of those middle of the night ideas. I was looking for a way to involve the community and get people excited about the upcoming Tredyffrin 300 events. For those of you who have a Tredyffrin 300 calendar, you will see that this month (July) features our own Judy DiFilippo as Miss Tredyffrin 300 at Maxwell’s Quarters in Valley Forge National Historic Park. After I set up that photo for the calendar, I always thought that there was more for Miss Tredyffrin 300 than simply Miss July. So as a way to incorporate Miss Tredyffrin 300 into the Flat Stanley idea, I decided we needed to create a Flat Judy.

A couple of weeks ago, Judy and I had a photo shoot and I had Signarama in Paoli recreate our very own Flat Judy. Flat Judy will be available for many photo opportunities between now and the Tredyffrin 300 events. My hope is that Flat Judy will be a bit of the theme “Where’s Waldo” and we will have her featured on the website, http://www.tredyffrin300.org/ and in the local papers as she makes her way around the community in the next couple of months. She will visit some of our historic sites, attend special functions, attend summer camp with local school children.

I am looking forward to showcasing 'Flat Judy' and her journey, through the use of photographs over the next couple of months.