Read to your Kids

I can admit, these days I don't read as much adult stuff as I'd like to. Although, I have read scores of children's books since the birth of my now five year old son. In reading them I have learned to love them and actually I devour them. I am enamoured with them so much that I will confess to making secret trips to the book store and hanging out in the children's lit section all by my self. I have even given writing for children a kick at the can. Check out my latest work entitled "The Wish". Feel free to critique it too!

The Wish

Once there was a family who lived on a farm, whose farmland was in desperate need of rain to make their crop of lima beans grow. The family counted on the rain like they counted on the beans to make a living. Days went by. Weeks went by, without a drop of rain.  The farmer’s fields began to flake and crack and the choices from the pantry cupboard were becoming slim. For the first time, Hanna the little farm girl began to see worry on her parents faces.

One day while playing in a field Hanna plucked a dandelion that had gone to seed (weeds seemed to thrive even through drought). She blew on it as hard as she could, making a wish for rain as she blew.  In that moment her wish was born. It traveled out of her mouth, whizzing and whirling towards a cluster of gray storm clouds that were in the sky.

Far below the storm clouds, Clarence floated on a raft with his family. Where he lived, it had been raining for many weeks and all the rain had made rivers raise so high that it covered up his house.  Despite having lost all his favourite things to the rain and water, he and his family had been able to stay together. However, Clarence knew that they’d all be a little happier if they could touch the ground again. So he wished for the rain to stop and the sun to shine, to help dry up all the water.

Meanwhile, up in the sky Hanna’s wish was working hard to lasso the heavy rain clouds.  The wish mustered up all of its strength to work them loose, and was able to pull them over to her family’s farm, whose field was so very dry. It took many days of solid rain before the ground became wet enough for the lima beans to sprout. Though eventually, Hanna and her parents were able to take delight in seeing thousands of little green lima bean shoots pop up across their fields.  

While bobbing along in the raft, Clarence noticed that the rain had stopped. To his amazement the dark clouds had broken up to reveal the bright shiny sun that was hiding behind them. Its warm rays felt good on his cold and soggy back. The sunshine helped spread hope to him and his family. For the first time since being on the raft, his Mommy and Daddy smiled.  It took many weeks of sunshine for the sun to drink up all the water. But eventually Clarence and his family were able to touch the ground again.

On the other side of the world a little girl named Kirima sat with her family around a candle. For months on end they lived in complete darkness. It was night all the time. Kirima could barely remember what her small town had looked like in the daylight.  All she knew was that the sun was needed to melt some snow to summon the spring. She made a wish for the dark cold nights of winter to end and for the days of spring to shine. The wish got busy and rounded up the sun...it dragged it across the world so it would be there to greet her when she woke up the next day. For the first time in many months Kirima’s Mother did not have to wake her for school. The sun beaming through Kirima’s window did it for her. That day marked the start of spring.

Way, way, over on the opposite side of the world a little boy named Sebahive (seh ba HEE vay)  lived with his tribe in a desert.  There in the desert all of the tribe’s people and all of the deserts animals waited anxiously for a cold dark night to come and relieve them from the sweltering dessert heat.  As  Sebahive lay in a hut, too hot and weak to move he wished for a cold dark night to come.  That night as the sun dropped out of the sky, the wish reeled in a cold dark night and cast it out onto the desert, reviving and refreshing everyone and everything that lived there.

The wish was tired but happy that it could help so many children. Then just as the wish was about to rest after all of its granting’s, a little boy named Jacob - who couldn’t complain too much about anything, who lived in a safe an fortunate part of the world, who was fed anything his heart desired, who had a roof over him not under, who got to enjoy four seasons (and when one of them became too hot or too cold all could be fixed with a flick of a switch) requested a wish. You may be wondering just what kind of wish this little boy could possibly have?  As Jacob stepped around mounds of toys and baskets full of clean laundry on the floor, to place his dirty cup into a sink filled with dirty dishes, Jacob made an unselfish wish for his Mother. He wished that one day her wish to tell the world’s children about wishes would come true!