Over the last week, I've paid close attention to the storybooks Rebecca reads, and I noticed something a little disquieting. I noticed that Rebecca is drawn to stories with a lot of pathos,
and preferably with tears raining down in buckets.
I started analyzing Rebecca's reading habits when the 6 o'clock stitch proposed a Book Parade, in which we'd show and tell why our children favor certain books. And Rebecca doesn't just prefer books filled with drama, she also recites them with her two year old vocabulary, her voice modulating to express moments of peak tragedy.
I think all this literary pathos started when she was given a little book about a boy getting a bump on his head and going to the hospital. I hoped the book would make her accept her frequent hospital stays and check-ups a bit more easily. However, the book has since disappeared from sight because I found it highly annoying. In the story, the boy is walking along aimlessly, his nose in the clouds, when he trips over a stone and falls head over heels. He ends up in the hospital, where he makes lots of friends and receives lots of presents.
I was strongly tempted to throw that book straight into the garbage, but I don't throw books away. I found it offensive because what messages, after all, is a child going to receive from this story? That if you trip and fall, you go to the hospital? That children in hospitals never have anything seriously wrong with them, and are there to have fun? It seemed like an affront to the children we'd seen in hospitals, who plainly weren't having any fun at all. Rebecca included.
Question: can anyone suggest a good story book for a young child with a history of heath issues? (Apart from Madeleine which I'm saving for when she's a little older).
In our library of pathos literature for youngsters, Rebecca's absolute favorite is a book that dates back to my mom's childhood, and was published in 1945. My maternal grandfather knew the author, Bruno Munari, and when my mom would read this and his other books to us, she'd tell us about him. (This book in Italian is available here )
It's a delightful book, a precursor of modern pop-up books. It's a simple story told with simple images and visual and tactile cues, which was remarkably innovative back in 1945. The drama begins right on the first page: a man's truck breaks down 10 km from his destination.
Out of the truck comes a car in which he continues his journey, but which will also break down, at km 9. And so on with a motorcycle, a bicycle, a moped, roller skates ... they'll all break down, until the man is left to complete his journey on foot, although his shoes fall apart and the sun sets before he arrives. By that time he's lost everything, in fact, except the huge package he's been carrying all along.
It's a present for his boy, who's been waiting for him at home.
