THE TEN BEST BOOKS TO MAKE YOU LAUGH OUT LOUD
| CURE FOR GROWN-UPS | Lost and Found OLIVER JEFFERS |
Of course, when a child is upset, you need to find out what the matter is, too. This is easier said than done. When the boy in Lost and Found finds a dejected penguin at his door, he wants to help. But he jumps to the premature conclusion that the creature needs taking back to the South Pole and the penguin doesn’t know how to explain that it’s something else. When they get there, the penguin is even sadder than he was before. Think of this silently suffering penguin when you’re faced with an upset child and don’t rush the diagnosis stage.
SEE ALSO: stuck
chicken pox
Sometimes a writer stumbles on a rhyme that’s just too good not to be used – which is perhaps how Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox came to be. Bringing a host of other fairytales into the mix, and with Fifties-inspired artwork mirroring the spots of Goldie’s pox in the Locks family’s polka-dot wallpaper, this delightful picture book covers the disease in all its vile stages, from the question of who Goldie could have caught it from (cue a phone call to the three bears) to trying not to scratch, and being taunted by a sibling who – hurrah! – gets his comeuppance in the end. Full of funny visual riffs (look out for the father’s dude-ranch shirt), this book should be applied along with the calamine lotion.
SEE ALSO: bed, having to stay in • bored, being
choice, spoilt for
Should it be the lemon cupcake with the jelly bean on top? Or the chocolate cupcake with the Smartie on top? Or the green cupcake with the vanilla icing and hundreds and thousands on top? It’s easy to see how what starts as a treat can segue into a trauma in today’s over-abundant world. What a relief, then, for a child to find an old man struggling to make up his mind in the rhythmic classic Millions of Cats. When the old man’s wife says she’d like a cat in the house, the old man goes out to find one. He walks a long way – over the black-and-white woodcut hills and under the black-and-white woodcut clouds – and finds not just one cat, or even a dozen cats, but ‘Hundreds of cats,/Thousands of cats,/Millions and billions and trillions of cats.’ Of course, no sooner has he chosen one – a pretty white cat – than he sees another that’s just as good. And then another – and so it goes on, each cat seeming just as beautiful as the last. The situation resolves itself in a way that is somewhat sinister – perhaps more to grown-ups than to children – but happily obviates the need for the couple to make a decision themselves.5 Making the perfect choice might not be as important as being pleased with your first choice, the story suggests – or the choice that chooses you.
SEE ALSO: spoilt, being
chores, having to do
Chores are a bore as far as kids are concerned, especially when they could be lounging around doing nothing or building a den in the woods. When Tom Sawyer is confronted with the vast acres of Sahara-brown fencing that he must whitewash one Saturday morning, all joy drains from him. Then along comes Ben Rogers, impersonating a steamer and looking like he’s about to make fun of Tom for his unenviable task. That’s when Tom has his master-stroke of ingenuity. Instead of bemoaning his plight, he makes the job sound appealing. ‘Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?’
Soon Ben is begging Tom to let him have a go – even giving him his apple for the privilege. By the end of the afternoon, Tom has earned himself twelve marbles, ‘part of a jew’s-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything . . . a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye’ (and that’s only some of the things) from other children eager to share the job. More importantly, he’s been able to spend the day watching other people do his work. The definition of work, he realises, is what you’re obliged to do, while play is what you want to do. Let Tom’s example be an inspiration to all grown-ups when trying to get kids to muck in.6
For younger children, your go-to woman is Mrs Piggle-Wiggle, the inspirational quasi-witch who has been more or less single-handedly training American kids to be good, responsible citizens since the late 1940s. A batty woman with a hump and hair down to her knees, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle has a way with kids, and all the local parents send their offspring to her whenever they need curing of being a slow eater or of answering back. She takes a similar approach to Tom Sawyer on the subject of chores, ensuring that children want to do them rather than feel they have to. There are several books in this series, and you’ll find a great cure for being a show-off in Hello, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle (which comes with illustrations by the great Hilary Knight), while Mrs Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm (with illustrations by Maurice Sendak) contains an excellent cure for children who neglect their pets. Give them to a child to read – or read them yourself and take notes.
SEE ALSO: cook, reluctance to learn to • job, wanting a Saturday • laziness • pocket money, lack of • told, never doing