Page 56

There's one of those games or whatever they're called going around Facebook (again), which I didn't intend to participate in publically, but did try to privately. It says to pick up the book nearest to you, turn to page 56, and copy down the fifth sentence.

First attempt: A Fruitcake Christmas only has 24 pages, and they're not even numbered. No page has five sentences. I don't particularly care for this book (I'm being nice), but Helen loves it. She read it out loud to her doll today. "Iggy and Ziggy! Bah-humbugga!"

Attempt number two: A slightly longer book, Little Bear's Trousers, has 32 pages. They're not numbered either, but I really like this book, as well as the other Little Bear books by Jane Hissey. A Welsh friend in Germany gave them to Marie when she was little, and I even knitted (without a pattern--I was so proud of myself!) a pair of trousers (if they're red and for a bear, they're trousers, not pants, no matter what my nationality) for one of Marie's bears at her request. Lots of warm fuzzies associated with this book. But no page 56.

Third book: Charlie Needs a Cloak. 30 pages. But I love Tomie dePaola's illustrations, and the sheep totally crack me up all through the book, trying to get their wool back.

I had to lean a bit to get the fourth book, but didn't actually get up: The Cat in the Hat. The first book with numbered pages, AND it has a page 56! But no words on that page.

Fifth book: Alas, Goodnight Moon doesn't have 56 pages either. This copy is just about to disinigrate and has been repaired several times. The year Marie was born (1997) was the 50th anniversary of the publication of this book, so four different people gave this book to Marie when she was born. My grandma wrote in the copy she gave Marie, and put her trademark dragonfly stamp in it, so that copy is kept up and safe. I kept one of the others to be read and chewed on, and gave away the other two copies.

For a moment there, I thought book number six was going to be a winner: all the small poems and fourteen more has 194 pages, but again, no text on page 56. This is the poetry book with Sonlight Core 5, and I imagine one is supposed to get all sorts of deep and cool meaning out of it. I would have quit reading it to Marie and Jacob after the first week or two, but they think it is great fun to take turns reading poems out loud with the funniest dramatic and profound voice they can muster. So we do that.

Book number seven: Teeny Tiny Farm doesn't even still have all of it's original pages--there are 16 left, which does not include the front cover, so I'm not 100% sure of the title. I know the back cover was sighted earlier today, but I may have thrown it away already, since I decided that as much as Marie and I enjoyed this book when she was a toddler, there's no really good reason to keep its remaining shreds.

Finally! It took eight tries, but here's my sentence: "Abraham had a very large family and though he had no money, he was rich." Very cool. (I'll just ignore the next sentences that go on to say that he was rich because of all his sheep and goats and pretend that the author meant what he said in just the one sentence! That is known as "taking it out of context", but it suits my purposes. :-) )

I can reach two more books from where I'm sitting, and one of them does have more than 56 pages AND has text on page 56, but my main conclusion is that we need to get better at getting Helen to put the books away that she takes out!