Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

Damien, my world traveling engineer brother, tends to bring back neat little souvenirs to us once he returns home from his travels. As a result, Daniel has a closet sprinkled with shirts from foreign countries. Along with clothing, our little man is spoiled by receiving neat and unique toys from the places his uncle visits, such as a toy fire truck from Poland and a detailed wooden horse from Germany. Books are also a neat gift that Daniel receives. He has a picture book that is all in German, but the German words are right next to everyday beach and ocean objects, so if Daniel chooses for this book to be read, we can say each thing in English. Most recently, after returning from a trip south of the border, Damien brought Daniel a very neat picture book that has English and Spanish for each picture. These books we can work with, and we are always very grateful for the sweet blessings from our loving family. There is one book, however, that Thomas and I have begun to dread seeing Daniel choose at bedtime. Nothing is worse than when Daniel happily chooses this book for us to read:

It looks innocent enough, right?  Well, the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” applies here, for your assumptions of it being a great read would be sorely wrong.

For starters, it is from Brazil and completely in Portuguese. I know that this language has many similarities to Spanish, which I am familiar with, yet I can not decipher many words in this book at all. Being that the words are of no help, it would be logical to build off the images to help tell the story, using some simple inferring skills. It is at this point we encounter another issue: most of the pictures give you nothing to work with (see the horse and rock & chicken with book pictures), not to mention they are creepy (just look to your left!).

So, the story then has to come completely out of your head on a whim. Daniel has developed a new skill where he is aware of the amount of words on a page, and he can calculate how long you should talk in order to be reading all the phrases. If you appear to be cheating him of words, he will tap the page with his finger until you finish. Demanding isn’t he.

Another flaw: the book is l….o….n…..g... 111 pages to be exact.  Typically, with such a long story, we would admittedly flip a few extra pages with each turn of the page. However, a new part of little man’s bedtime story routine is that he holds the book, not you. You must, therefore, read each and every page, for absolutely none are to be skipped.

Recently, Daniel has been choosing this book each and every night, and we have endured its “reading.” As Thomas was taking him to bed a few nights ago, he made a comment about not wanting to read that book again. I, being the great wife that I am, quickly made it to Daniel’s room and procured the book in order to prevent the extended read for Thomas. Silly ol’ me just took it into the living room and placed it on the couch. Guess what I had to read the next morning :o).

A few more things that I do know about this book, beyond the frustrating things already stated:

1. The girl puppet finds a roach in her oatmeal and she and the boy puppet keep it, taking it to various other locations, for some odd reason.
2. A horse plays in a pile of trash that is stacked outside. The boy puppet collects a cup full of the trash and keeps it, for some odd reason.
3. Daniel really likes it,  for some odd reason.