The Flat Stanley Project

[1][2][3] The project was designed to facilitate the improvement of the reading and writing skills of elementary school students, while also promoting an interest in learning about different people and places.

[1][2] Written in 1964 by American author Jeff Brown, the book centers around the life of character Stanley Lambchop, a boy who is accidentally flattened.

[1][2] In an interview with CNN in 2005, Hubert explained: "In the book, by Jeff Brown, Stanley gets squashed flat by a falling bulletin board.

[1][2] In the run-up to the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger took his son's Flat Stanley with him on the campaign trail, including his appearance that year on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

[1][4][11] Flat Stanley travelled on Presidential airliner Air Force One accompanied by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and also orbited the Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

[2][12] According to the February 26, 2009 broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Flat Stanley was on board US Airways Flight 1549 when it was forced to make an unpowered emergency water landing in the Hudson River.

[13] Flat Stanley has also been photographed alongside such people as television personalities Steve Irwin,[11] Jamie Oliver[3] and Gordon Ramsay,[3] NASCAR drivers Joe Nemechek and Richard Petty,[11] former heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali,[3] NFL quarterback Peyton Manning,[14] musicians Clay Aiken and Willie Nelson,[1] as well as Ireland's oldest person.

[15] The Flat Stanley Project was featured in a 2004 episode of the animated TV series King of the Hill titled "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Alamo", in which Peggy Hill takes photographs of a Flat Stanley doll in order to help teach kids about geography and safety issues.

[12] In 2006, four schools in rural Chesterfield County, South Carolina implemented a year-long project called Flat Stanley Goes Hi-Tech.

In 2003 Karlo Cabrera, a teacher at Fenside Public School in Toronto created "Flat Mark" as part of a civics and literacy project.