This morning I was back in with my Wednesday morning kids. We haven't had women's study since the end of November, so I was really happy to start up again. For trivia we did Birds of North America which turned out to be incredibly challenging. Then I read my little guys our weekly stack of picture books.
We were reading Room for More by Michelle Kadarusman, illustrated by Maggie Zeng. The story takes place in Australia during a bushfire. Two wombats, Dig and Scratch, are happily hiding out in their nice, deep burrow when they hear footsteps overhead and start inviting animals to join them to escape the fire. First there's a wallaby and her joey, then a koala. Then along comes a tiger snake. One wombat is concerned because snakes have venom.
After I explained what venom is and that if a venomous snake bit you, you would get sick or maybe die, and that's why the wombat was worried, one small child piped up, "I bet that's what happens!"
Honestly, what type of children's story do the think I'm going to read to them? Happy, friendly animals until they rescue a tiger snake who bites them all?
I mean....there was the Babar incident. I had quite forgotten that his mother dies at the beginning of the story (shot by poachers while Babar was on her back) and that later the king turns green and dies. And the first one I read in the homeschool room many years ago was Charlotte's Web, so there is that.
But these ones were just babies when I read those stories (in fact, Charlotte's Web was so long ago that these ones may not have been born). All they get are happier stories, but they still predict (or hope for) character death every now and then.
I should read them Where the Red Fern Grows. That would scar them for life!
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