Millions of Cats WANDA GA’G
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 what you’re
cigarettes
SEE: peer pressure
clinginess
SEE: confidence, lack of • grow up, not wanting to
clumsiness
All kids start out clumsy – just watch a three-year-old trying to pour milk on their breakfast cereal if you’re in any doubt. Clifford, the big red dog, is clumsy too in a wet-nosed, incompetent way which stems partly from his being the size of a house, and partly from an over-abundance of zeal. A kind and affable creature with big, cartoony eyes, Clifford never means to make a mess. But when he digs a hole, he can’t help uprooting an entire tree. And when he chases a car, he can’t help coming back with the whole vehicle clamped between his jaws. The fact that Clifford’s owner Emily Elizabeth loves her pet however inadvertently destructive he is,7 is what makes these books reassuring as well as fun.
For older readers who still can’t seem to look where they’re going, Matthias, the young mouse-hero of Redwall – the first of an engrossing, twenty-two-book-long series about the inhabitants of an ancient abbey – is forever doing clumsy things when we first meet him. Flip-flopping around in sandals that are too big for him, he trips over his words as well as his feet: ‘Er, sorry, Father Abbot . . . Trod on my Abbot, Father Habit.’ The Abbot can see that this bungling young mouse has something special about him – and when the mice and their faithful badger Constance have to defend themselves against the evil one-eyed rat, Cluny the Scourge, and his army of vermin, it is Matthias the mice look to for leadership. Matthias’s clumsiness hasn’t left him by the end of this story: he still manages to go sprawling over a tree root when rushing back for his final showdown with Cluny. But by then it’s a sign of his eagerness to do battle, too. Youngsters who suffer from this ailment might take note of the Abbot’s advice and move through life a little more slowly. Or they can notice how endearing Matthias’s clumsiness makes him and embrace theirs, too.
SEE ALSO: adolescence • lose things, tendency to
cold, having a
SEE: adventure, needing an • cheering up, needing
coming out
SEE: gay, not sure if you are
concentrate, inability to
SEE: fidgety to read, being too • short attention span
confidence, lack of
Whether they’ve been overshadowed, undermined, ground down by criticism – or never seemed to have any in the first place – children suffering from a lack of confidence need an exhilarating metaphor that helps them break free, and the encouragement to believe in themselves. They’ll find both in Tar Beach, a story inspired by the author’s memories of lying on the roof of her family’s apartment in Harlem on hot summer
