Off to Berryland (over and over and over again)

Jamberry
By Bruce Degen
1983, Harper
(Board edition 1995)

Our copy of Jamberry arrived slightly used, part of a box of hand-me-downs a relative sent I was still pregnant. I remember looking at its slightly battered cover and thinking, 'Wow, this one's seen better days. It must have been a real favorite.' But paging through it, I wasn't sure why. Really? Strawberry ponies? A tuba-tooting bunny band? Not to mention the simpering, slightly creepy bear who appears on nearly every page.

Funny how a few years actually feeding, changing and bathing a kid changes your ideas about parenting.

I can't remember why I once thought the book in bad shape -- it's not torn, it bears no sticky juice residue or crayon scribbles. And it's WAY cleaner than most of what we bring home from the library. True, several tooth prints dent the cover, but I can no longer remember whether they were put there by Rosie or the little girls who owned it first.

So yeah, this story's sweeter than Splenda, overly precious, and frankly doesn't make much sense. But Rosie loves this book and so I do too now.

Oh, all right: probably love is too strong a word. But "Jamberry" holds a certain place in my heart, somewhere alongside the certainty that part of what's great about motherhood is that my life is no longer all about what I want.

In the past two years, we've read "Jamberry" a lot. Like, REALLY a lot. So much so that in idle moments I sometimes find the verses chugging through my head, unbidden:

Quickberry!
Quackberry!
Pick me a blackberry!

Trainberry
Trackberry
Clickety-clackberry...

Making friends with books

"Blueberries for Sal"
by Robert McCloskey
1948, the Viking Press
Paperback by Puffin Books
A Caldecott Honor book

Beloved picture books tend to present writing so spare that a child's imagination must swell to fill them. These stories aren't lectures, they're friendships, requiring willing participation from the second party. And that means that some also prove acquired tastes, pushed aside in repeated disinterest until the moment some mysterious sea change prompts favored status.

We brought home a copy of "Blueberries for Sal" a few weeks ago, and I was charmed to page through its quiet meanderings, laid out in restrained pen-and-ink drawings. Still, the book didn't do much for Rosie, who made clear her disdain through a sudden display of fascination with her toenails.

A week in Maine changed everything.

Maybe it was the extra story time during lazy afternoons at the coastal cabin where we shared with her grandparents. Or perhaps the blueberry-rich banana bread that stained our teeth all week. Either way, the deal must have been cemented that last clear morning, as we lounged in Adirondack chairs watching diamonds bounce off the Sheepscot River, and Rosie's grandmother helped her pluck two small orbs from a last, lonely blueberry plant. Both were instantly stuffed into her mouth.

What could be sweeter?

Little Sal hurried ahead and dropped a blueberry in
her mother's pail. It didn't sound kuplink! because the
bottom of the pail was already covered with berries. She
reached down inside to get her berry back. Though she
really didn't mean to, she pulled out a large handful,
because there were so many blueberries right up close to
the one she had put in...