Friday, June 8, 2012

I don't write Children's Books

I shouldn't be allowed to read children's books. My brain always goes off in odd directions. I wonder about things... some of them things I probably shouldn't be wondering about. Or my fingers start itching to make edits, even to beloved classics.

It can't just be me. All you other parents out there - surely some of you have had the urge to fix your children's books? Right? Of course you have. Correcting the length of the stanzas. Making the rhymes actually, you know, rhyme. It's okay to admit it. It's a perfectly normal reaction.

Or maybe you want to correct some minor thematic issues. I mean, I can't be the only one who thinks that the father in Guess How Much I Love You is weirdly hyper-competitive. Haven't you ever wanted to add a scene where Little Nut-Brown Hare says, "You know, Dad, you could just say, 'I love you, too, son.' You don't always have to go me one better. Psycho."

And then there are those cases where... and, okay, maybe this one is just me... you want to be reading another book entirely.

An example? Well, okay. How about,  Elephant and Piggie Get Chased By Zombies.

In a sensible world, this would already have been written by the estimable Mo Willems. Tragically, in our world this has not happened, and so - as is often the case - I find I must fend for myself. Like so:


Go on, click on it. (It'll take you to a PDF.) You know you want to. You know you'll like it. I'll bet Mo Willems wishes he had written it.

2 comments:

  1. Hee!!! Okay, that was just awesome. I emailed it to my sister, for that matter, as bedtime reading for my niece, The Divine Miss M (age 21 months).

    ReplyDelete

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