Dick and Jane got nothing on this

A miracle occurred today. My parents had some family friends over for dinner. As they were talking in the kitchen, I saw a coverless old book that looked like some sort of collection of children's activities. What's this? I said, as I walked over to pick it up, noticing that it had my own last name penned on the front. The minute I touched it, however, I knew. I gasped, pulled the book up to my chest as if someone were trying to take it away from me again, and fell to my knees.

You see, my mother used to give away and/or loan our things to this family: books, clothes, The Brave Little Toaster and Big Bird in China on VHS, to name a few, but who's keeping track...At times in our lives, my siblings and I have lamented the fact that she got rid of some of these childhood treasures. The greatest loss to me was always the book I learned to read from, a book that was unsearchable, because I never knew its title or anything. In it were several easy reader stories. The most vivid to me was one about an animal who was being chased by a bee. "Look! Up in the tree. I see the bee and the bee sees me." I can still remember turning those pages and reading the book out loud as a 3 or 4 year old.

I thought it had faded from existence. I had no idea the book would show up 20 years later. A miracle. As I pored over its pages tonight, recollections of the other stories came rushing back to me. The book is in pretty bad condition, but now that I know the title, maybe I'll buy another copy so as to preserve the original. Also, looking at it from an educational standpoint, it is a quality piece of children's literature. With an original copyright in 1960, I think it must have had more authentic and interesting writing than its contemporaries. Okay, in case you haven't stopped reading out of boredom from my nerdiness, here are some pictures.


This is probably where I developed the misconception that bees have stingers on their noses.



This story about a lion is rather good. In it, a bird asks the lion if it can have a strand of hair for its nest. The lion says yes, and eventually he gives away all but one strand of hair to the birds. The zookeeper gets frustrated with the lion because he looks funny, and the lion tries to remedy the situation by hiding, wearing a bucket, and using his tail as a wig. The zookeeper doesn't like these solutions, so he brings in a special shampoo salesman. He uses the shampoo on the lion to make his hair grow. Instead of his mane returning, his single hair just gets ridiculously long, and they cut it off. Ultimately, the birds find out that the lion is sad and make a leaf wig for him to wear. The people still say he looks funny, but one man says he likes the wig. And the lion says he'll wear it until his hair grows back.

And that's all I have to say about that.