J. P. Miller (2) (1913–2004)

This book was printed the same year I was born, and I grew up looking at the pictures over and over before I could even read. So even if the stories are weird, the nostalgia rush of seeing the upside-down acrobat or the stick-thin singing cowboy just fills me with warm fuzzies.

Little Peewee, a tiny Dalmatian dog, is the star attraction of a circus, until he has a growth spurt and becomes "the same size as any other plain dog that you would see anywhere." Despite being beloved by everyone in show more the circus, he must now leave for being so ordinary, because that's what circus folk do? Thankfully, another growth spurt saves the day.

Sylvester, on the other hand, is a victim of suburban sprawl. He learns to appreciate the music of nature in his peaceful little meadow, but soon it is engulfed by new construction and he takes refuge in a music shop guitar display. He learns to plink out the sounds of the meadow on the guitar, and when the tune is overheard the guitar is assumed to be haunted and unsellable until a brave singing cowboy shows up who apparently has no patience for guitar lessons and would rather the guitar just play on its own.

My daughter enjoyed this when I read it to her back when she was three. My wife, not so much this week . . . show less

For B's amusement I wrote a short dissertation worthy of my college days about this book that I found at the Jimmy Hale Mission on Saturday.

It starts on page one, where a family of bears are being driven through the snow by one small horse. I did my research (on Wikipedia, where there are absolutely no issues with falsiness). A female brown bear in adulthood can range between 290-440 pounds, and a male brown bear between 400-790 pounds, unless he's one of the few male brown bears who can show more make it up to around 1000 pounds. The horse in no way has the appearance of being a dray horse, and we must assume that any horse of any size can comfortably pull half of its weight. Going by the appearances of the illustrations of the book, this does not seem likely. The whole book is unseemly. This could never possibly happen in a million years.

Do you see where I'm going here? I won't bore you with any more details, nor will I give you the complete dissertation. I will merely state that when I found this book lying under a pile of magazines at the thrift store, my heart skipped a beat because I owned this as a child way back in 1980. Flipping through the pages I could have wept, especially seeing the African ostrich running through the snow. That is an image I've filed away in my head for some time now, and seeing her again brought up images of my mother reading this to me at Christmas.

I'm sure they still print this book, and if you have a little one, please pick it up for them. Leave it to me to in some way mock a precious memory. On the cheeky side, I will say that it is very unlikely that any of these animals would ever pile into a sleigh with critters who could easily see them as dinner. show less

An interesting parable, the true meaning of which I think is lost on most children. This should be required reading for adults, though, considering the behaviors some of us exhibit at times.

The Little Red Hen would be a good book to read out loud to a group of students who could mimic the responses of the other characters in the story. The story of the Little Red Hen is a lesson that can be shared and compared for a variety of things in life. If an individual is not willing to help others then they cannot expect to reap the benefits. This is a timeless story that I remember from my childhood, and enjoy reading it to my children now.