This is a subscriber-only article
Last Thursday was World Book Day. A lovely form came home from Ricky’s playschool. The three-year-olds were being asked to name their favourite books and bring them into school on Thursday. They could also dress up. Ricky has lots of books and selects two to read every night at bed time. There are a few he reads a couple of times a week. One is The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
I bought the book for him in Johnstown Garden Centre on my way home from our Women & Agriculture conference last October. Ricky loved it. It’s about five ugly animals from Africa: the lappet-faced vulture, the spotted hyena, the wildebeest, the Marabou stork and the warthog! The book is written in rhyme and Ricky knows the words by heart, even though there are up to fifty words on some pages.
At the back of the book are small pictures of sixteen other books from the collection. Ricky fantasises about having them all. I gave him four more for Christmas: The Hospital Dog, Monkey Puzzle, The Snail and the Whale and Tabby McTat. Out of that lot, The Hospital Dog stole the show and is now up there with The Ugly Five. These are captivating books.
The day Ricky’s books arrived in the post, I was on a big clean-up as everyone was out except for Diarmuid. I had gathered several piles of washing and sorted them into piles around the back kitchen floor. Some items like good dresses and jumpers just needed a freshen up so I decided on a quick hand-wash followed by a spin in the machine.
Book delivery
I heard a delivery van outside and, seeing the package, I realised it was Ricky’s books. I sat down to read the four books. They were just beautiful, with fabulous illustrations and great stories that made me chuckle. Annoyingly, I could hear water flowing upstairs. Sighing, I got up to reprimand Diarmuid, who was possibly having a bath. After his transplant, he was told not to take baths for a while. I went out into the hall and bellowed up the stairs. Diarmuid emerged from his room and assured me he wasn’t taking a bath.
“What am I hearing?” I asked myself. I went out through the kitchen and realised that the sound of water flowing was coming from the back kitchen. I opened the door to see a torrent of water flowing out of the sink and over the worktop and into an open drawer of bric-a-brac, then onto the floor. It had pooled around my mounds of washing and the whole place was in a sorry mess. I had left two taps on, full belt. That day, the clean-up took a while but at least I knew that Ricky’s new books were good.
Memories of books
Ricky’s form opened the conversation about our favourite childhood books. My own favourite book was Heidi by Johanna Spyri. I loved the story about the grandfather and the little girl in the Swiss Alps. Tim had read so many books that he couldn’t name a favourite book! Julie loved Clifford The Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell. Colm is also an avid reader, like Tim. After a struggle, he volunteered October Moon by Michael Scott.
Ricky was still deciding which animal he was going to be. We had a look at my material collection to see if we had something to make an outfit and he was happy that we’d make a spotted hyena suit. We were going to do it on Wednesday. On Tuesday night, around 1am, there was an awful racket downstairs. Recognising the sound, I rushed downstairs.
Poor Ricky had an awful dose of croup cough. The virus causes the windpipe to swell and makes breathing difficult. It wasn’t his first time, so Julie was giving him some Ventolin through the children’s puffer. Tim was assisting.
The old fashioned and effective cure is steam from the kettle. David was on that job. Ricky knew what was coming and between barks, he was crying, “No kettle, no kettle!”
I knew that there would be no need for an outfit. Ricky would be out of school for World Book Day. Being only three, he didn’t really notice. The gift of reading is a gift for life.
SHARING OPTIONS: