Children's Book of the Week: 16

Okay, we're all sort of on the mend. We're going to Disneyland a week from today, and so we're talking ourselves into feeling just fine. But that makes us kind of tired, so then we take a nap. But anyway, here is another installment in my Children's Book of the Week series. This book is very precious; Audrey and I both love it. I think my sister-in-law Charlotte gave it to us when Audrey was a baby. It reminds me of all the stories Neal tells about going to the nursing home with his mama when he was a young boy. They would visit with all the lonely senior citizens, and that's just what the boy does in this charming book,

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
by Mem Fox

"There was once a small boy called Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and what's more he wasn't very old either. His house was next door to an old people's home and he knew all the people who lived there." He would visit them all the time, and got to know them all for their best qualities, but "his favourite person of all was Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper because she had four names just as he did. He called her Miss Nancy and told her all his secrets."

Soon, Wilfrid learns that Miss Nancy has lost much of her memory, so he goes in search of memories so she can have some to keep. He asks all the old people, "what's a memory?" and they answer things like, "something warm, my child, something warm," "something that makes you cry, my boy," or "something as precious as gold."

He goes home and starts collecting things to give to Miss Nancy: seashells he found at the beach, the medal his grandfather gave him, which made him sad, fresh warm eggs, and his football "which was as precious as gold." He calls on Miss Nancy and gives her each thing one by one. At first she thinks him strange for bringing him all these little things, but then she starts to remember. Memories of her childhood and young life come flooding back, and all are illustrated so beautifully. She remembers "the day she had met [Wilfrid] and all the secrets they had told. And the two of them smiled and smiled because Miss Nancy's memory had been found again by a small boy, who wasn't very old either."

Oh, it's just the cutest book. You can get yours here.