at all. The chatterbox in your midst will surely notice how unhappy the other characters become in this story, and with luck – ahem – they’ll not notice how pleased you look when they stop talking to read it.
SEE ALSO: questions, asking too many
cheering up, needing
After tears, there needs to be comfort. Guess How Much I Love You – a book more or less guaranteed to get a grown-up choked up, which is in itself a comforting spectacle for a child – is our favourite picture book for the job. Little Nutbrown Hare, ‘who was going to bed’, wants his Big Nutbrown Hare to guess how much he loves him – then tries to show him how much by spreading his arms as wide as he can. Of course, Big Nutbrown Hare can make his arms go wider, and his feet go higher; and as they continue to try and out-big the other with the size of their love, we get to see Little Nutbrown’s quivering whiskers and eager little tail take it all in: ‘“Hmm, that is a lot,” thought Little Nutbrown Hare.’ With their soft, white tummies and their delicate, worn-looking ears, these hares are about as irresistible as children’s book characters get – and the quiet rhythm of the prose will soothe and lull. That Little Nutbrown Hare never gets to hear the true extent of Big Nutbrown Hare’s love introduces your child to the gratifying concept that sometimes a grown-up’s love is just too big to describe.
Children who have, in some way, brought their upset on themselves will feel much better for getting to know Winnie-the-Pooh, loved as he so evidently is despite – and even because of – his foolishness. When Pooh gets stuck in the entrance to Rabbit’s burrow, he only has himself to blame. Full of the honey and condensed milk he wolfed down at Rabbit’s, without even having been invited to breakfast in the first place, his girth is now greater than the front entrance of the burrow. With his ‘North end’ poking into the woods, and his ‘South end’ still in Rabbit’s kitchen, he’s unable to move either in or out.
At first, Pooh tries to pretend there’s nothing wrong – that he’s ‘just resting and thinking and humming’ to himself. Then he gets cross and tries to lay the blame on someone or something else – in this case, Rabbit’s front door for not being wide enough. Sensibly, Rabbit doesn’t argue, but goes to fetch Christopher Robin – the equivalent of a grown-up in these stories. Christopher Robin gently chides Pooh for being a ‘Silly old Bear’, but in ‘such a loving voice’ and with such complete acceptance of his friend’s follies that everybody feels ‘quite hopeful again’ straight away.
It’s Rabbit who suggests they read aloud to Pooh while waiting for his stomach to deflate (although, ever the opportunist, he also suggests that he use Pooh’s back legs as a towel rail while he’s there). His kind suggestion (or perhaps it’s the prospect of no meals for a week) tips Pooh over the edge and, a tear rolling down his cheek, he asks to be read a ‘Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness’.10 If you respond to a child’s upset in much the same way as Christopher Robin does – gently chiding but in a loving voice and showing you love them just as they are – you’ll do a good job of cheering them up. Then choose the ‘Sustaining Book’ with this story in it – or one of our laugh-inducing reads in the list that follows.
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
