The kids’ school is having its annual Book Fair this week.  I remember the excitement associated with that (we had the bookmobile) and I remember the absolute, uncomplicated joy that accompanied being handed a few dollars and permission to Buy A Book.  Hell, I’m 32 and it still makes me happy.  I don’t actually remember any of the books I bought, but I suspect that my daughter will always look back on the one she brought home earlier this week – and which she brought back to exchange today. 

She climbed into the car after school on Monday carrying a large, thin paperback in a yellow plastic ShopRite bag.  She held it up proudly and bade me to wonder at its glory, which I did.  Her brother, whose class had not yet had their turn at the fair, was duly impressed. 

“What book did you get?” he asked. 

“It’s called Scuttle’s Big Wish,” she told him, in that tone of six-year-old voice that indicates great and powerful information has been revealed.   

“What’s it about?” 

“I haven’t read it yet,” she said, “but I know it’s about a mouse.”   

And with that, the subject was closed; in our house, Evie’s adoration of mice and rats is as much a given as air, or gravity, and a brand-new book about mice – from the exalted Book Fair, no less – was all we needed to know.  This book was special. 

Afternoon passed into evening, through homework and dinner and orchestra rehearsal and bedtime.  Sitting on the couch later, Bill turned to me and asked if I knew about Evie’s book.   

“I know it’s about a mouse,” I said.   

 He produced it from somewhere in the pile of papers and assorted trash that finds its home on our couch, and held it up.  “It made her very sad,” he said, leafing through the wide, boldly-illustrated pages.   

“Why, what happened?” 

He explained that it was the rodentine  version of King Midas – everything the mouse touched turned to cheese.  “And see,” he said, pointing to one of the pictures, “Scuttle lives in the wall here, and the bird in the cage over there is his friend…”  He flipped further into the book, and then opened to a page showing the bird, turned to cheese with his wings spread as if preparing to embrace his mouse-friend, and the mouse, tears streaming down his horrified face.  Scuttle was MISERABLE! shouted the text.  “She cried and cried,” Bill said, “even after we read to the end, when everything turns back to normal and the bird is okay.”   

I remember Bill becoming greatly distressed a month or two ago over a news story he’d read, about a father who had accidentally run over his child, who had – unbeknownst to the father – been hiding in a curbside pile of leaves.  In trying to articulate what so upset him about this story (beyond the obvious,) Bill talked about how the father must have felt, right at that moment when he realized what he’d done.  And while a children’s fiction book may not be tragic on the same level as that news item, to a six-year-old, it surely cuts as deeply. 

I suppose I tend toward hardassery in my parenting, but some things are just too sad – this book included.  I understand the point of the King Midas story, and someday Evie will, too.  She might even have learned the lesson from Scuttle, had it not been presented in such a gut-wrenching way; King Midas is something her head would’ve explained to her, but the look of sheer, unrelenting despair on the mouse’s face was something her stomach and throat told her, before her brain ever knew what happened.  That she should have felt that sucker-punch sickness, should have faced that moment of oh my god what have I done! horror (something so heavy that even her father broke down under the weight of it) makes my own stomach hurt.  It’s a lesson of its own kind, I suppose, but not one that any first-grader really needs to learn, and not through the betrayal of her prized Book Fair purchase.   

I sat down with her the next morning.  “Daddy said you were upset when you read your new book,” I began.  She nodded and looked at her hands.  “Even though at the end, he gets to wish everything back the way it was?”  Nod.  “I thought maybe, if you wanted, we could ask your teacher if you could trade it for another book.”  She shook her head no, but her face didn’t look convinced.  “Okay, well, you don’t have to.  But I’ll write a note for you, just in case you change your mind.” 

That evening, I noticed the note still sitting where I’d left it.   “Did you decide to keep the book?”  I asked her.   

“No, I took it back,” she replied.

“But you didn’t bring the note I wrote for you.” 

“I didn’t need it.  I told Ms. Egan myself, and she said I could go to the Book Fair tomorrow and get a new one.”  I was about to tell her I was proud of her for not needing my help, for taking charge of her own well-being, but before I could speak she smiled brightly and continued, “I’m going to choose one that makes me happy.  Still about rodents, though.” 

I’ll hand it to the kid, she still may not understand the lesson of King Midas, but she’s becoming an expert in self-reliance and resilience – and given what she’ll likely face over the course of her life, that may be far more valuable.