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A friend of mine is having a baby and someone's throwing her a baby shower, although she generally despises such things as displays of suburban bourgeoise conformity and obligatory materialism (baby showers, not babies) so I called to ask her what she'd actually like.
"Books," she said.
"Oh, so you can read something while you nurse? Sure thing."
"No, books for the baby. See, everyone will be getting me stuff for infants, but that's really a short time in a child's life. I'd really like some picture books for when the baby's a little older."
So I went to a bookshop and bought her some of my favorite books from when I was a very little girl. Thirty years ago, and almost all the books I remember loving when I was a toddler are still in print. I wondered if some of them would be too old-fashioned-- can a little girl in 2006 Los Angeles fathom picking blueberries in Maine-- but figured that it would be no more or less alien than sailing away for a year and a day to the land where the bong trees grow, or where the wild things roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws.
Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag.
"Cats here, cats there,
Cats and kittens everywhere
Hundreds of cats,
Thousands of cats,
Millions and billions and trillions of cats."
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
"Little Bear and Little Sal's mother and Little Sal and Little Bear's mother were all mixed up with each other among the blueberries on Blueberry Hill."
The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear, art by Jan Brett.
"And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon."
Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, art by Clement Hurd
"Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere."
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.
"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye
and sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot."
I watched the election with a little boy asleep beside me on the couch. Papersky, more eloquent than I, wrote a poem.
"Books," she said.
"Oh, so you can read something while you nurse? Sure thing."
"No, books for the baby. See, everyone will be getting me stuff for infants, but that's really a short time in a child's life. I'd really like some picture books for when the baby's a little older."
So I went to a bookshop and bought her some of my favorite books from when I was a very little girl. Thirty years ago, and almost all the books I remember loving when I was a toddler are still in print. I wondered if some of them would be too old-fashioned-- can a little girl in 2006 Los Angeles fathom picking blueberries in Maine-- but figured that it would be no more or less alien than sailing away for a year and a day to the land where the bong trees grow, or where the wild things roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws.
Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag.
"Cats here, cats there,
Cats and kittens everywhere
Hundreds of cats,
Thousands of cats,
Millions and billions and trillions of cats."
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
"Little Bear and Little Sal's mother and Little Sal and Little Bear's mother were all mixed up with each other among the blueberries on Blueberry Hill."
The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear, art by Jan Brett.
"And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon."
Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, art by Clement Hurd
"Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere."
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.
"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye
and sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot."
I watched the election with a little boy asleep beside me on the couch. Papersky, more eloquent than I, wrote a poem.