So I love kids picture books. They are a simple fun way to
get a quick pick me up when feeling down. I have quite a few favorites and I’ve
been fortunate enough to have bought a few of those favorites. So I reached
this goal. Since I became full time at my job I would hit the snooze button
every morning and lay in bed for an extra hour feeling anxious about the day. I
imagined it would help with the anxiety if I stopped hitting the snooze button
and started getting up right when my alarm woke me up. So I started getting up
right when my alarm went off. So how do these two things relate? Well I stopped
hitting the snooze button for 31 days now. So to reward myself I went to Barnes
and Noble to buy a kids book. The two books I wound up buying (yep couldn’t settle
for one) were ones that I’ve wanted for awhile. These two books are great.
One called The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings by Anna LLenas. This
is the best pop-up book I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen a lot) but I love
the concept of a monster who has a variety of feelings and how he copes with
all those different feelings. He winds up putting his feelings into bottles to
set them apart because together he’s just a jumbled up mess of emotions. How
many of you can relate to this? I get all jumbled up when the anxiety hits me
or a maniac episode. We all have those days when our emotions are hard to get a
handle on. I just love the way this book deals with it. Like I said, a fun and
simple way to just release a little anxiety and have some fun. I just love
reading.
The second book is called After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back
Up Again by Dan Santat. He has a
book called Beeker: The Unimaginary
Friend, which is how I stumbled unto this great writer. I also bought his
book called Drawn Together that he
wrote, which I will blog about another time. In this book Humpty Dumpty falls
off the wall but the king’s men put him back together. After he’s put back
together he’s afraid of heights. Since he’s afraid of heights he misses out on
some of his favorite things, like watching the birds from the view of the wall.
Or even his favorite cereal which is on the top shelf and he’d have to climb a
ladder to get to it. Aren’t we so like this version of Humpty Dumpty? We fall
down and we are afraid to get back up to the level we fell from. That is what
happened to this Humpty Dumpty.
I love what happens. He creates a paper
airplane/bird and he’s happy again with this bird. Happier than he’s been in a
long time and then disaster strikes it goes over the very wall he’s afraid to
climb. So he’s faced with a decision: climb the wall or stay on the ground. So
too are we faced with a decision: get back up and face our fears or lie dormant,
not making any progress in our lives. I so hope that I will be like Humpty Dumpty
who decided to climb the wall despite his fears. I so hope I continue to push
against that wall of fear no matter what fear it is. I’ve pushed through a lot
of fear in my life and I still have some fears to face. So here’s some lines
from this book and yes I think you should read it but I’m gonna spoil the
ending for you; how else can I make my point here? The following words are
copyrighted by Dan Santat. So this is after Humpty Dumpty’s paper airplane/bird
goes over the wall.
“I almost walked away again. But
then I thought about all the time I’d spent working on my plane, and all the
other things I’d missed. I decided I was going to climb that wall. But the
higher I got, the more nervous I felt. I didn’t want to admit it: I was
terrified. I didn’t look up. I didn’t look down. I just kept climbing. One step
at a time…until I was no longer afraid. Maybe now you won’t think of me as that
egg who was famous for falling. Hopefully, you’ll remember me as the egg who
got back up…and learned how to fly.”
What
I loved about this ending is that Humpty Dumpty the egg cracks and turns into a
bird and flies.
We
all can do what Humpty Dumpty did.
Face
our fears and learn to fly no matter what life throws at us.
We
can all face our fears, one step at a time.
