My daughter has gotten into the adorable habit of saying, “night, night” when she’s ready for bedtime stories.  She loves books and will sit quietly browsing through her library, Moo, Baa, La La La, The Hungry Caterpillar, and Fox in Socks.  Ahh, sweet, funny, innocent children’s books.

Mom and Dad used to read us stories every night.  I have been reflecting on my favorites and wondering what they say about me:

Runaway Marie Louise, a sassy little mongoose gets in a fight with her mom and runs away.  She spends the entire book trying to recruit other animals to be her new mother, but they all politely decline, including a wizard frog with stars all over him. Then Marie Louise finally gets bored and hungry and heads back home to her mom, who has been frantically looking for her and gratefully plies her with peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches.

Amelia Bedelia, a completely inadequate cleaning lady maintains her job time and time again because she makes delicious pies.

Clifford el Gran Perro Colorado and Federico el Sapo, Dad’s attempts to teach us Spanish.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ (the more gruesome they were, the more I enjoyed them…) Blue Beard, a monstrous nobleman with a nasty little habit of decapitating his wives on their wedding night meets his match with a saucy young vixen and her sister who outwit him and get their brothers to kill him.

One Thousand and One Nights’ Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a poor woodcutter discovers the secret den of a pack of criminals and steals a little of their gold.  His greedy brother tries to steal a lot of their gold and gets chopped up, a lot of hilarity and hijinks ensue, and the story ends with Ali Baba’s clever slave girl outwitting the nasty thieves by pouring boiling oil all over them.

Soooo….I think when it comes to my child, we’ll stick with Dr. Seuss.