Last night my seven-year-old neighbor came over with her friend (who happens to go to my school). I invited them to come inside and asked if they'd like cookies. Oh, yes, they told me, giggling. Is there anything you'd like to show your friend in my house? I asked my young neighbor girl. The library, she told me. We took the plate of cookies and two napkins to the library and sat down on the rug.Look! Two for me, and two for you, said her friend. They immediately started munching. We were sitting by the H-L shelf of picture books, and I reached for Russell Hoban's Bread and Jam for Frances, another of my all-time favorites. What are they? asked her friend about Frances and her family. Badgers, of course, I told them. Badgers can talk? she asked. Most certainly they can in books.
Chocolate chips melted on the corners of their mouths as I read (and sang, when Frances sings about her food). They were incredulous at the lunch spread laid out by Frances's friend Albert: a cream cheese-cucumber-and-tomato sandwich, a bunch of grapes, a tangerine, a pickle, a hard-boiled egg with its own cardboard salt shaker, a bottle of milk, and a custard cup with a napkin underneath to look like a tablecloth.
Each time Frances got bread and jam instead of the family's meal, the two girls giggled. Soon, they were singing with me (and somehow, we managed to sing the same tune to songs without music!), culminating with soft voices when Frances whisper-sings: "What I am/Is tired of jam." We finished the rest of the book as a three-person chorus, their voices full of perfect expression, chocolate smudges on their faces.
When we walked back to my neighbor's house, her friend excitedly told her mom, "I was at my library teacher's house!"
The children in your neighborhood are so lucky to have you for a friend. Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and a good book; what could be better?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear your neighbor's friend got acquainted with Frances. I love those stories too. I was also a picky eater, and child who did not want to go to bed, so I can easily relate to Frances in this story as well as in Bedtime for Frances. Russell Hoban nailed a child's emotional world perfectly.
Sigh. I wish I were your neighbor.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, dear girl, you are truly a jewel. Those children will never forget their afternoon with you and no doubt will spread the word that there is magic to be found in the library teacher's house.
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