Rathman, Peggy: Bootsie Barker Bites

(Originally posted January 18, 2005.)

We're reading Bootsie Barker Bites, illustrated by Peggy Rathmann. Although it's recommended for ages 4—8, it's perfect read-aloud material.

This book, a delight. The narrator — a five year-old would-be scientist — is tortured by Bootsie, who keeps claiming she is a dinosaur and will eat the narrator. Finally, our heroine thinks of a new game: paleontology. Dinosaur-Bootsie is frightened, and runs away, hopefully never to return.

I love how unapologetic it is. You don't have to play with kids you don't like. You don't have to understand where they're coming from. You don't have to learn that they are human and really nice on the inside. What you have to do is stand up for yourself.

Helena loves it. She says "Bootsie" with a charming French accent. My only concern is that Helena seems to identify more with Bootsie than with the intended protagonist, the terrorized narrator. (Our fault, I guess, for encouraging Horrible Noisy All-Devouring Monster games.)

The pictures of Bootsie's out-of-control menace for the time being elicit puzzlement from Helena. How to explain that it's not "sad," and it's more complicated than "angry"?

This book is recommended for helping youngsters resolve conflicts and deal with bullies. I don't believe Helena will have issues on either side of that coin. Regardless, Bootsie Barker is lots of fun.

Burningham, John: Oi! Get Off Our Train

(Originally posted January 14, 2005.)

Way back when we were embarking a train journey, we bought a book for Helena, hoping to keep her fascinated and occupied. About a train! (It was actually J-F who picked it out, but he can't have read it or he would've mocked its strong environmental message.)

Oi! Get off our Train, by John Burningham.

Helena had no interest in this book until very recently. It's a mystery to me what draws her to any particular book and how her attachment to it then borders on obsessive to the exclusion of all else, at least temporarily.

We've only read the story in its entirety a couple of times. Helena gets stuck on page 5. The 2-page spread closes in on our hero's toy train as it churns to life. In the background, but taking up a lot of space, is the boy's bedside table, fronted with a cabinet door.

Helena needs to open that door.

She reaches into the page, grasping about for the knob. She knocks. She tries my keys, as if by this magic object she can shrink herself down to step through the looking glass, as it were, to unlock the mysteries that lie therein. Occasionally she looks around to the next page, but on her face is always disappointment, as if she's been cheated.

(I ended up housebound the other day, as I couldn't find my keys. They were last seen being used by Helena to unlock the door to her space capsule underneath the kitchen sink.)

I find this to be odd behaviour, but I can only assume it to be a common manifestation of a child's imagination in a particular phase of cognitive development, grappling with spatial perception, switching between 2 dimensions and 3, and the concept of representation.

Similarly, Helena shares her milk and cookies with the creatures of Jamberry, flicks bugs away from Kitten, and pets and kisses all her book friends.

It's as if she slips into another realm between the pages, literally being "lost in a good book."

That's a neat trick. Are we born with the ability to cross over, to give ourselves over, to suspend disbelief? Do we lose it (in varying degrees, from individual to individual) as we gain our footing in the material world?