Cabbages and Kings: Falling in love, part I (JE # 5)

A few days ago I finally got the opportunity to read to Adam with another child present. His friend, Violet, was sleeping over and although we'd started to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane a night or two before, we hadn't gotten very far and he wanted Violet to hear the story from the beginning. So as Adam snuggled in his bed, Rose in the "bed for a friend," as my mother had called it when we picked out the set, we began. Adam, who for as long as I can remember has been terrified of dogs, spoke up immediately about his desire to see the picture of poor Edward being manhandled by the neighbors' dog.

"Mommy, can we see a quick picture of when the dog was biting?" I'm always amazed at his fascination with dogs given his fear of them, and this scenario seems to me the perfect example of how reading can so capture a child's attention that even something he or she fears the most can be safely approached for closer examination. And looking at pictures, of course, is part of reading the story as well. Children see pictures in ways we grownups do not, and they take away from them as well.

As the children discussed this particular scene, Adam pointed out the dog's urine stain on the tablecloth and explained to Violet that, "He's made out of plate so if you drop him, he'll break." he was concerned the dog would be too rough with Edward. He demonstrated with soft-toy Barney how Abilene held Edward in her lap when they discussed the upcoming journey on the Queen Mary. And Violet commented that, "If you like yourself too much, maybe you won't be so nice to other people." The children were exploring the personality of Edward the toy rabbit, who thought many things but couldn't speak because, as Violet said, "He wasn't real."

Adam, who has a tendency to become very excited when he is read to--he especially loves it when other children are there, and often is so proud of his books--and on this night he had a very difficult time keeping still. When the new maid zealously shook and cleaned Edward with a brutal swooshssppptt of the vacuum he cried out at the outrage: "That's a child's! That's the mother's child's!!" Finally he started to settle down, but asked questions and made running commentary--as he is wont to do--in an excessive manner. I was a bit lucky at this moment because as I read the end of chapter three, I used Pellegrina's words to talk to him as well: "'You must listen...It is all in the story.'"

And indeed they started to settle down further. Perhaps they were growing more tired. Violet had at one point laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. But now they both were listening and at the words, "'Once there was a princess...'" I could almost see the method of listening switch from one to another in their eyes and in the countenance of each. These were words came from fairy tale territory. And of course, a witch! A witch who turned the very beautiful princess into a...warthog? As the children had been doing with words earlier to decipher meanings, they now drew on associations, their schema, to make sense of such a choice and to grasp what was happening. Adam, with a bit of scaffolding, was able to remind Violet that Pumbaa in The Lion King is a warthog, to which Violet responded, "Pffttt. They are fat and sweaty!"

Portrait of a princess, a very beautiful princess

Violet knows what she likes. Or doesn't, as the case may be. The children reflected on what the princess had done--and not done, loved--to bring her to her terrible circumstances. But somehow they seemed to know it was too late for the princess, as they remembered how Pellegrina looked t Edward as she talked, as she said certain words, and I talked with them about how one might recognize words of consequence when someone is reading a book to them. The way a voice drops, when certain words are stressed, or when a dramatic pause increases the anticipation of wondering what will happen next. "What do you think the king's men will do when they see the princess?"

"They tried to shoot at it!" Violet cried.

And when I whispered, "You disappoint me," the children knew there was something there, but needed a bit of help.

"Who else said that to somebody?"

"The witch," Violet said quietly, but with assurance. She knew something was afoot.

"Said that to who?"

"The princess."

"I know what's gonna happen," Adam jumped in. "The witch might turn into a ghost and slide on [unintelligible] that, before where she said, and they'll marry." He extended his last word to indicate duplicity, or perhaps intrigue. As silly as what he said may sound to some, or as off the mark as he is, he actually was engaging his schema here, recalling the formula for other stories with princesses, and combining fright factors: ghosts, after all, are supposed to be scary, as is the witch. He accepted that it wouldn't happen, not because of its unlikelihood, but because, as he was reminded, the princess loved nobody.

"Who else in the story loves nobody?"

"The grandmother!" Violet was getting ahead of herself. "She's the witch!"

Perhaps because Violet had named the witch, Adam agreed, and Violet followed up with: "That's why she said it! 'Cause the witch said it to the princess!"

"Yessss, and she [the grandmother] leans over to Edward and says, 'You disappoint me.'" I whispered the last words.

Both children drew in their breath.

As Edward lays in his bed wondering why the old lady had told such a useless story, Adam protested, "But she loves him!"

We chatted a bit about what Edward was thinking as he lay there chanting the words over and over, and Adam sighed.

"Edward will soon learn something and stare at the grandmother and she might die and then he'll soon learn that it's concerned to love people."