Josie and the Pussycats is hardly Maus; the two are in no way even comparable. But I thought it might be interesting for Adam to read a book in this style that is not necessarily all gags and jokes. The stories in it are not serious, but they do include a pair of siblings who frequently quarrel, one of whom is endlessly trying to gain the attention of Allan, who likes Josie. Alexandra, the jealous sister of Alexander, often does rather mean things to Josie, not unlike Angelica, discussed below, who also presents a new sort of paradigm to challenge. Both are characters who take us rather by surprise, not unlike the way some people in real life might. Alexandra insults Josie's clothes, calls her a "stupid redhead," and frequently puts down her girl group, talking about how it would not ever be successful until she, Alexandra, led it and the band were named after herself. There also are plots involving physical threats to the characters, who frequently encounter dangerous criminals. For a child learning to deal with these types of situations, comic-book format opens up a new way in which to approach handling them, learning to look at them in a different type of way.
Moreover, given the emphasis now being placed in schools on visual literacy, it struck me as helpful that Adam chose to expose himself to this format, not just for developing a base from which to form an awareness of literary matters, but also for the conventions he would be learning. We talked about the differences between stanza and paragraph, episode and chapter, and tonight we finally passed the ordinary bubble that pointed to someone's head--indicating they were saying those words--and the bubble with smaller bubbles beneath it--a character's thoughts--and came upon the print version of "voice over." I explained to Adam that this was neither spoken nor thought by characters, rather it was information for readers to allow them to understand how the story was developing. (In the past I had said, "It is a narrator telling us what is happening, someone who is removed from the story." He seemed to grasp this, although I would want to follow up on this understanding.) In this case, it gave the readers, us, to understand that Alexander, by snapping his fingers, had unwittingly broken a spell the jealous Alexandra had placed on the Pussycats.
As the storyline originated as a children's cartoon in the 60s, there is also a DVD The Best of Josie and the Pussycats, each episode of which starts with the theme song. Although I prefer to limit Adam's access to television watching, there can be benefits. One, for example, is the musical element. Music in the life of a child not only is enjoyable, but seems also to have an emotional appeal that is hard to match. For fun I've included a clip of the show's opener, with various scenes and theme song. Come on along!
Josie and the Pussycats, long tails, and ears for hats
Guitars and sharps and flats
Neat, sweet, a groovy song
You're invited, come along
Hurry, hurry!
See ya all in Persia, or maybe France
We could be in India, or perchance
Be with us in Bangkok, make no difference
Everywhere the action's at, we're involved with this or that
Come on along now!
Josie and the Pussycats, no time for purrs and pats
Won't run when they hear scat
There where the plot begins
Come and watch the good guys win
Josie and the Pussycats
Josie and the Pussycats
And he's big time into holidays. This past Valentine's Day was pretty special for him--any excuse for a party, really. He typically loves to bake, make, buy and create things for people, and this time was no exception. He passed out Valentine's cards for his classmates at school and surprised me by not wanting to take his treasures with him to school. One of them was his themed book: Rugrats: Be My Valentine! It's probably more entertainment than anything, but we still manage to get lots of interesting comments from it, such as standards and transitions in life like growing up and moving out of parents' homes--"Oh so these, they like, had a fight but they're still brothers."
"Well, I don't know that they had a fight."
"Maybe they moved away 'coz they had a fight, but they're still friends, now they're friends but he married someone else, so he got her, this after they had the fight, they moved away, they married, and they married, she married two times, first they got Tommy, then Dil, and then..."
"Honey, they only lived together when they were little boys. When they grew up they moved out from their parents' house to their own houses."
"Then why did they decide to...ohhhh, I get it, they didn't have a fight, they just wanted their own house. First they look for a wife, and then they decided for a house!"
--and the relationships that make people cousins, and societal celebrations and their origins.
We also get to use the word "butt."
"How come we're eating cookies that look like our butts?" Phil asked. He held his heart cookie upside down.
Tommy and brother Dylan "Dil" Pickles are cousins to Angelica Pickles, and their fathers are brothers. Tommy is sweet, Dil erratic and Angelica, who often steals cookies, mean. In one passage Angelica shoots toy arrows into their midst so as to distract them long enough to steal cookies. Adam understood that each thing happened, but not that each had a singular goal within the story. Having come after Angelica was seen prancing around dressed as Cupid, and later demanding to know if those were cookie crumbs on the floor, the scene with Angelica's trickery was a bit confusing for him at first. I tried scaffolding so Abdul could realize the purpose of those scenes, to build onto his understanding of how pictures tell important details as well as words. I pointed to the babies, whose eyes were all focused in astonishment on the arrow at their feet while, in the background, Angelica sneaks away with a plate of cookies. Listening to the tape was heartwarming in a comedic way.
"What do you think is happening in this picture?"
"They found that from Stu, but it was really from Angelica. She's dancing around, that she found..."
"What's that in her hand?"
"...cookies."
"So somebody just shot an arrow, who do you think did that?"
He points to Angelica.
"Angelica...Why do you think she did that?" His lips are closed again the concentrated way they do, but he is not sad this time, as he was over the fate of Edward Tulane.
"'Coz she didn't mean to but it accidentally went to Stu."
"Well, look at this. If she shot the arrow, and look at all those babies are looking at the arrow. Are they looking at her with the cookies?"
Head shake.
"So what do you think now?"
"She just shot it...?"
"So that they'll watch the arrow and she can sneak away with the cookies maybe."
"Ahhhh," he cries out, smiling, as his focus gives way to understanding. "That was a good trick!" We laughed together and hearing it again on the tape brings joy to my heart. A discovery we shared, and the way our laughter joins on the tape is sort of like the way our hands meet at a crossing, without having to say anything.
"But it wasn't cool." Adam is, after all, a very kind child, many times unusually so. It occurs to me at that moment that he often shows other children things he has recently learned, and I wonder if this episode will join his repertoire. He likes to share. My eyes gleamed as I watched him.
"Yeah, we were laughing but in real life that would be kind of mean."
"It's so dang...bad." I laughed at the way his words had gotten progressively bolded, as if his voice conveyed a font, and one could hear the letters growing on the page, until...they suddenly revert to the ordinary. He was, all in good fun, laughing at my expense, poking fun at my sentimentality and how he was able to exploit it. And that just elevated the happiness within me, for a child's capability to use humor to enable someone to laugh at themself. And my heart sang as it always does at the sound of children's laughter.
The best kind of Valentine's Day present.
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