Tag: book review

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kid pick: pig will and pig won’t

One of Percy’s favorite reads lately is the Richard Scarry classic book on manners: Pig Will and Pig Won’t. So therefore, I should write about it.

Like most Richard Scarry books, this little volume’s illustrations are crammed with little details that make each page interesting. But the force of it, unlike the meandering but oh-so-fun-to-look-at Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (another favorite) is felt in the storyline. At first I wasn’t sure why, so I sat down to do some hardcore literary criticism on this knee-high book.

a study in contrasts

Like the ever-entertaining Goofus and Gallant of Highlights, or any number of compare-and-contrast character sets, Pig Will and Pig Won’t are immediately understandable by their polar opposition to each other. For a boy Percy’s age, they are very easy to understand, from Pig Will’s bright smile and wide eyes to Pig Won’t’s sour expression and punky pig-ears overshadowing his eyes. Before they even do anything, you know the difference visually.

But the biggest difference is also clear in their names: their attitudes are diametrically opposed. One will, one won’t. And this willingness (or lack thereof) actually strikes at the heart of the matter, in a book that could easily devolve into a behavior-based ethic. Scarry touches on what actually drives obedience – a willing heart. By contrast, a recalcitrant heart drives disobedience.

The first question on most of our minds when we encounter characters like this is: what’s going to happen to them? Richard Scarry does not disappoint.

reaping what you sow

In one of the clearest depictions of “reaping what you sow” that we have on our shelf, Scarry puts the opposing paradigms of Pig Will and Pig Won’t through the ringer. As you may have guessed, Pig Won’t reaps the whirlwind. He won’t help out with the shopping, he won’t obey his parents, he won’t do the work required. So, from the rather alarming spanking he receives in only the first few pages, to landing sick in bed after not listening to his mother’s petition to wear a raincoat, Pig Won’t is duly punished, both by his circumstances and by his parents.

Ultimately, he’s learning how the world works – and Percy is picking it up right along with him.

Now, one of my duties and privileges as a parent is to help my children to understand how the world works, and this involves both punishing them when they intentionally disobey and allowing the consequences of their actions to occur. Of course we do not give them what they truly deserve (God doesn’t give us what we truly deserve!), but if I were to withhold consequences for their actions they would be ill-prepared for a world in which actions have consequences. It’s one of my jobs to help my adorable little terrors to understand and experience this.

The fact of the matter is that willingness yields actual rewards, while unwillingness yields actual difficulty. When we don’t see these things happen, we know that justice is failing in some respect. It’s built into us.

And Richard Scarry is hammering this fact into our heads. If Pig Won’t decides he doesn’t want to do the work of helping plant, water, harvest, and cook the corn… He won’t get an ear to gnaw on.

I have a good guess as to what most of you are thinking right now. Of course this isn’t always the case. The wicked sometimes get away with their crimes. The righteous suffer. Of course this understanding is only part of the picture of a gracious God, a Father Who loves us so much that He withholds judgment from we who deserve it. But we can’t forget that this is the way God designed the world to work. Scarry won’t let us forget.

Which is why the turn of the story is so effective.

(un)just desserts

Pig Won’t is lying alone, sick in bed, having disobeyed his mother’s warnings to wear a raincoat. He’s listening to the happy sounds of Pig Will’s birthday party downstairs. And he is feeling sad.

And who should come to the door but Lowly Worm.

“Although Pig Won’t doesn’t deserve it, Lowly Worm brings him a piece of birthday cake to go with his cough medicine. “It’s too bad you couldn’t have been at the party,” says Lowly.”

I love that this act is totally unexpected, and totally disconnected from any expectation that Pig Won’t will change. I love that it is tied so closely to receiving medicine. And because it’s backed up by myriad examples of Pig Won’t’s total depravity, it shines all the more brightly. My children know very well that Pig Won’t doesn’t deserve that cake. But the kindness of Lowly Worm (what a perfect character to give this act to, right?) proves to be the catalyst Pig Won’t needs to reassess his heart.

This is, in part, how the grace of God works. It’s surprising, because it is undeserved and disconnected from our actions in the past or future. It’s a sheer act of love. And a sheer act of love is what it takes to change a heart.

The final vignette in the book is another study in contrasts: Pig Won’t thanks Lowly Worm (something he would never have done before), and Lowly responds with this: “It’s nice to be nice. You should try it sometimes. Then you will have many friends.”

And Pig Won’t does a complete u-turn, exemplifying total change accompanied by a new name: Pig Me Too. I love that his change of heart and name is so closely related to gaining a new community as well.

This isn’t a perfect story by any means. I take the time to clarify things for Percy when I read it to him. And you know, Pig Will’s incessant goodness and consequent blessings irk me. I kind of wish Richard Scarry had written a sequel where Pig Will cracks and reveals a psychopathic dark side, and Pig Me Too has to drag him back from the brink of destruction with a selfless act. But there are other stories for that.

For now I will be happy with the fact that, even in a book on manners, truth and grace can shine through.

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kid pick: miss rumphius

My children have books they return to, over and over. This one is brought to you by Nadia.

As a creative dad, I’m a big fan of any story that uplifts beauty, but this one is way more than just uplifting. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney, is the story of a life well-lived.  

Seeing with a Child’s Eyes

As with the best children’s books, our entry point is through the eyes of a child — specifically, the great-niece of Miss Alice Rumphius, a.k.a. “The Lupine Lady.” She has grown up hearing her great-aunt’s stories, and now she tells them to us.

“The Lupine Lady is little and old. But she has not always been that way. I know. She is my great-aunt, and she told me so.

Once upon a time she was a little girl named Alice, who lived in a city by the sea.”

The author uses straightforward, simple language (you believe that a young person is telling the story), and this clear voice continues from start to finish. But that doesn’t mean that the vocabulary isn’t strong and vivid; just that it’s a natural extension of how one tells a story to child, and how that child might repeat it.

Another way Cooney accomplishes this is through simplicity of motivation and decision. Miss Rumphius does something, and then she does something else. Simple as that. When she hurts her back getting off a camel, she reasons that it might be time for her to find a home by the sea. And the storyteller affirms this:

“And it was, and she did.”

This is very much like how a child views life, moving from activity to activity. There is nothing swashbuckling about this, just the practical nature of making a decision and following through, and what beauty comes of it. It’s a gentle way to tell a story.

Even though Alice is the center of the story, we get our first glimpse into her life with a series of reference points. She grew up by the sea. She lived with her grandfather, who made things because he was an artist. He let her help him sometimes.

Affirmation of a Larger World

And it is her grandfather who provides little Alice with three values upon which to build her life: exploration (going to faraway places), home (a place by the sea) and lastly…

“You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”

Miss Rumphius receives her grandfather’s wisdom and embraces it. She is rooted in something larger then herself, that extends back into the past. And the reason she is rooted is because she saw her grandfather reaching into the future by making the world more beautiful, for others to enjoy after him — for her.

When she grows up, Alice sets out to do these three things.

Keeping a Promise Is Beautiful

When I asked Nadia for her opinion on the story, she said that she liked that Miss Rumphius kept her three promises, even after falling off a camel.

To me, this gets at the heart of this story.

Even though it takes time and you might fall off a camel and people might call you That Crazy Old Lady, you can keep a promise you make. And the culmination of keeping that promise is richly imagined on full spreads in the final pages, a satisfying payoff to the long-range setup of the story. The stunning beauty of the finale actually means something because it took Miss Rumphius an entire lifetime to achieve “the most difficult thing of all” — to make the world more beautiful.

Miss Rumphius is not profound, and it’s not all-encompassing. It merely suggests that by exploring our world, finding rest in it, and cultivating beauty in it for others to enjoy, we are fulfilling a deep and true human vocation — one that originated in Eden, and resonates within us to this day. And, incidentally, one that a child can understand.

At the end of the story, we are back with the grand-niece. She is sitting and listening to her great-aunt tell the stories, and making the same promises to explore the world, to make a home, and of course, to do something to make the world more beautiful. And the last line lingers, opening us to the possibilities…

“…but I do not know yet what that can be.”