When Mom and Dad are teachers and children are college students, the entire household runs along the rhythms of the academic calendar. As of last night, we are ALL DONE.
And now we enter The Napping House.
This remains one of my all time favorite picture books. We still have ours, packed away for some future recipient. There was an article in the New York Times recently, chronicling a change in the publishing industry: so many parents are pushing their children away from picture books and towards chapter books and other more "mature" early readers that the industry is publishing fewer and fewer picture books each year.
Don't do it, Dear Readers! Picture books are wonderful and, in the best, there's a lot going on in the illustrations. I'm sure they develop some part of the brain that chapter books do not. Our children read both, and I'm sure they are the better for it. I know I'm the better for having read all those picture books with them.
Isn't it great that on a coldish day, we can talk about "our cozy bed" in the "napping house where everyone is sleeping." So today, we're drinking tea, taking occasional naps between our feather beds and the big down comforters. We're all wearing thrifted cashmere sweaters and fuzzy slippers.
Eventually--on account of the wakeful flea--everyone in the napping house wakes up and goes outside. We don't have the flea, but I suppose we will all get back to work soon enough.
If you have a child to buy a gift for, think about The Napping House. Or buy it for yourself, just in case a child comes over. Or just in case you feel in need of a little beauty in word and picture.
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