Tuesday, March 25, 2008

OUCH- a beautiful book

Came across this book "Ouch" by Ragnhild Scamell. Lovely illustrations by Michael Terry. Will use it for story telling.Go borrow from NLB and share with young kids or easily amused adults. I love the pictures so much I am contemplating buying it to share with future generations (if I am fortunate!!!).

Story is about a hedgehog (the squirrel looking creature with spikes on its back).Just when the hedgehog has finished building her winter nest under an apple tree, an apple dropped and got stuck onto her spikes. A passing squirrel with an armful of nuts tried to tug it out but failed. To make it worse some nuts got caught in the spikes. A smart alec pig suggested that the hedgehog rolled on the ground to free herself. As you could have guessed a pear and a crumpled leaf lying on the ground added to the hedgehog's burden.A frog suggested that the hedgehog dive into the pond which she did and picked up a water lily instead. Beautiful illustration, the heap on the hedgehog haha. Her friends could not help but laughed at her funny sight. The hedgehog was mad and lamented "It's not fair". After 2 more misadventures and increased burden the hedgehog met a goat. "Oooh!" cried the goat "You've bought LUNCH". "Help yourself" said the hedgehog. She never felt so light when relieved of her burden and ran as fast as she could to her winter nest. The drawings are so adorable!

Yes often time when troubles seem unabated, a goat will drift into your life and nonchalantly help you resolve them. The "goat" may be a person, a circumstance or for that matter anything at all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good insight, my friend. Unfortunately I feel I was that hedgehog sometimes and can't see things clearly what's outside that pighead. Fortunately in many incidences, I got goat rescuers who see me through in life. Keep writing. Keep shining!!