Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher

courtesy of brucecoville.com

Dan was supposed to be in bed sleeping, but he stayed up and secretly finished off the book he's been reading (Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville). We found him out because at 9:30, he came downstairs, tugged on my sleeve, and motioned for me to follow him back up. Could Daddy go? No, it had to be me.

So he led me back to his room, and as he climbed up into bed, he pointed at the book on the floor. My first reaction was exasperation: "Grrrr. Dan! Did you stay up to finish the book?"
He nodded sorrowfully (guiltily, I thought), and as I started griping about how he needed to go to sleep earlier, he dove into the covers and buried his face in his pillow. Then he started sniffling.

I peered down at him. He peered back at me. Tears.

Oh, dear.

Turns out the dragon had to leave Jeremy and go back to where it came from, and the trauma of separation was too much for my sweet little boy to handle, even though Jeremy and his dragon are spiritually reunited in the epilogue. Please could I lie down with him until he fell asleep? Sniff, sniff.

How could I say no?

Must remember the weeping so that I don't freak out when he says stuff like, "I'd rather be a regular soldier than a medic. Because soldiers get to shoot people, and medics can only use guns in self-defense."

Mouse Literature

Again, so much to write about--a lot going on over here at the treehouse--but because I don't know where to start w/o making it a laundry list, here's something completely different. Well, not quite. It involves a list. Several, in fact:

Anthropomorphic Mice in Children's Literature
(fanfare and applause)

I know, weird. But I can't shake it, so I figure I may as well write about it.

It was upon finding a novel at Dan's school library entitled Time Stops for No Mouse: An Hermux Tantamoq Adventure, that I had an epiphany. There are a lot of books about mice. A lot. I did a quick brainstorm:

courtesy of dianakimpton.co.uk

1. Stuart Little, of course (E.B. White)
2. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Robert O'Brien)
3. The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Beverly Cleary)
4. The Rescuers (Margery Sharp)
5. The Great Cheese Conspiracy (Jean Van Leeuwen)
6. A Rat's Tale (Tor Seidler)
7. Ben and Me (Robert Lawson)
8. The Tale of Desperaux (Kate DiCamillo)

Then there are the movies and television shows.

What about cats and dogs? Rabbits? I decided to make an official list.