Books

I am not sure how I ended up being a person for whom the happiest moments in life are defined by the discovery of a wonderful book (that's individual moments of happiness, not the sustained joy of living with loved creatures), but I wonder every single day how to give a similar gift to my kids. If presented with the cliched question of what ten things to bring with me to a lonely island if I knew that I'd be stranded, my dilemma is not whether to take ten books, but which ten books to take.
Up until having kids, these books were always adult in nature--involving black letters on a white page--but since Sava's birth the definition of a good book has grown exponentially. Now a trip to the children's section of the library and the discovery of a good picture book has the capacity to bring about a profound spiritual experience not unlike the ecstasy of those medieval mystics (yes, a minor exaggeration, but not light years away from truth). As long as there are good books to read to my children--to talk about, laugh with, and cry over--this life cannot be anything other than very much worth living.
With this in mind, here is this week's nominee for best children's book evah!

T

The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell is so good I lack the imagination to begin to praise it. With spare illustrations and fairly minimalist text, it tears down the walls of materialism which enclose this twenty-first century life of ours to present a beautiful vision of what is left  when we cease to give each other things and instead find joy in each other and in the world around us (this sounds thoroughly sappy, but you'll know what I mean when you read the book). It tells the story of a cat trying to find a gift for its best friend, the dog Earl, who, possessing a bowl, a bed, and a chewy bone, has everything and needs absolutely nothing. (Earl, by the way, reminds me of a wonderful husband of mine and daddy to my kids.). I don't want to give away the storyline, since it is too good not to experience it on your own, but I promise that you will be left wanting to read it again and again--to yourself or to your child. Sava does not quite "get" the meaning of the story yet, but he squeals with delight each time we read it, and so do I--each of us for different reasons.

The Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is one in a series from which we have read a couple of other books. It presents a delightful reversal of childhood experience in the character of a "little pea," whose life is otherwise perfect if not for the fact that his parents make him eat...candy...for dinner. Little Pea hates candy and can't wait every night for his treat after dinner, which is a dessert of spinach. Sava loves little pea's exclamations of disgust as he eats all five of his assigned candies for dinner, and his first reaction upon seeing little pea delight in his spinach was, "I don't like spinach!" No kidding. You think Amy Rosenthal knew that?
And lastly, Sava's enjoying a slim book called Flyaway Katie by Polly Dunbar, which I suspect Raya might like some day, and which tells the story of a little girl who, feeling gray and lonely, dresses up in colorful clothes and paints herself in order to feel better. She ends up entering a bright-colored painting on the wall of her house and spends an afternoon among the birds there, which improves her mood. Sava likes the idea of Katie painting her face and dressing in really bright clothes.