book pick: the day the goose got loose

by Melissa

you know those stories where one thing leads to another -- that mouse chasing a cookie, for example. sometimes i feel i'm stuck in one of those. the Small One slept in. so she didn't take a nap. so i didn't get all my work done. so in goes the movie so i can. which pushes back dinner. which means more leftovers the girls refuse to eat. which means crying and whining until, finally, bedtime. and then, of course, "Mo-m-my?! I ha' t' go PO-TTY!"

the day the goose got loose is an elevated sort of tale, and not just because it involves migrating geese. this rhyming tale is by Reeve Lindbergh, who until this post i did not know was the youngest of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. the words are wonderful, and delightfully over-the-top. but it's the illustrations by one of our favorites, Steven Kellogg, that are a key reason we come back to this book time and again. he has a wonderful talent for interpreting stories and taking them to the next level.

in this book, a goose gets loose (you probably got that part). and then all hell breaks loose. "When the goose got loose / She caused a riot. / Nobody ever thought she'd try it! / There wasn't any more pace and quiet. The day the goose got loose." and what can come at the end of such a day? a dream, a dream of something rather wonderful.

and now that my own two daughters are in bed dreaming, i have the space to remember that a part of me will miss loosey goosey days such as these.



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