pinkish-bluish

In storytime this week we read A Ball for Daisy. In this tale of sweeping emotion the floppy-eared Daisy loooves her red ball. She cuddles with it on the sofa; she carries it proudly on her walk; she tosses it to her friend… who pops it. Daisy is disconsolate, in a heartbreakingly doggy way, and trudging home, subsides sadly into her sofa. But in the end her doggy pal shows up at the park with a new ball, a blue ball, and a prancing Daisy gets to carry it home, every line of her loose and lively sketched body wriggling with happiness. (The book, by Chris Raschka, is on my personal short-list for the likely Caldecott.)

Right after the story, little Solana, dressed in scarlet flannel footie pajamas accessorized with pearls and a feather barrette, arose from the audience, meandered up and planted herself in front of me. “Are we going to do a skeleton dance now?” she inquired.

This was not a suggestion I had expected A Ball for Daisy to provoke. “Well, that’s an interesting question. Do you want to do a skeleton dance?” The rest of the kids in the room watched this interchange with silent absorption, as though we were the cartoon before the next movie.

Gloomily, Solana shook her head. “Huh-uh. I don’t like skeletons.” After a pause during which I raised my eyebrows at Solana’s mother, who made mystified gestures, Solana added, “But they aren’t real; they’re only for Halloween.” Then, gazing dreamily at the ceiling, she continued: “One time I slept cuddling a ball.”

“You did?”

“It wasn’t a red ball or a blue ball, though.”

“What color was it?”

“Oh…” she waved her hands illustratively, glancing around for inspiration, “kind of pinkish-bluish…” That was it. She seemed to be finished. She wandered off again. There was a short silence while we all considered these revelations.

One of the parents grinned at me and asked, “Where do you go from here?” It seemed to me we could go practically anywhere. I told everybody to stand up for the Bubblegum Song.

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© Debrarian and Practicing Noticing, 2011.

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