Glenn Miller

As a child, one of my favorite teachers at Edina’s Wooddale Elementary School was Miss Kuske. She was a legend – known for being a task master and suffering no fools. It was considered a badge of honor to be in her third-grade class. There was an unsubstantiated rumor that only the top students were selected each year for her classroom.

Miss Kuske had a much-loved tradition. If a recess was canceled due to weather, she would read a chapter from a book we students found to be endlessly entertaining. It was by a now little-known children’s author, Carolyn Haywood. The book Miss Kuske read us was entitled, “Eddie’s Green Thumb.” This sounded exotic to us. Was our story’s hero a messy painter? Might he be a visitor from Mars, where green life forms reportedly resided? Great adventure, no doubt, awaited us.

We were quick to learn that “green thumb” referred to gardening. “It’s a stinking book about flowers?” my friend Bruce whispered to me. But by the third page, with Miss Kuske’s deft narrative stylings, we were captivated. At the end of our cancelled recess period, we begged for more. Miss Kuske, disciplined if not ruthless, abruptly transitioned from Eddie to multiplication tables. We prayed for a week of rain and cancelled recesses. When the final page was turned, we begged her to begin anew. “Start over!” we shouted. 

“No need to,” Miss Kuske responded. “I have a whole series of Eddie books.”

If twenty-two students could gasp in unison, we did so. Awaiting us were “Eddie’s Pay Dirt,” “Eddie and His Big Deals,” “Eddie and the Fire Engine,” to name just a few.

Years later, when I had two young sons of my own, I went searching on the internet for the Eddie books. Though long out of print, used copies could be found. A bookstore in Spokane, Washington, had a copy of “Eddie’s Green Thumb” in “acceptable” condition. I immediately ordered it. My boys were about to be introduced to Eddie. 

When the book arrived a week later, I gently opened the hallowed volume. On the very first page was an owner’s bookplate. This volume, by way of Spokane, had been owned by a Dickie Smith of 56th Street in… Edina, Minn. Though I didn’t recognize the name, young Dickie had also, no doubt, been transported by Miss Kuske’s introduction to Eddie, his green thumb, and wonderful adventures in reading.