A month of inspiration? I know. A few ideas, yes, but not a month’s worth.
Turns out that’s OK. At least, it’s OK by me, and since I tend to have my own take on other people’s monthly themes, to quote Victor Borge, ‘that’s the way it’s gonna BE!’.
Anyway, I think there may be inspiration in Thursdays. It turned out that I came up with more ideas on Thursday last week too. Maybe it’s the prospect of the weekend round the corner, the sense of jobs ticked off in the week so there’s space to play – something like that.
I have had a few other ideas, and I will share those too (in another post), because it is, after all, about inspiration: not necessarily about finished product. (There’s a separate month for that. Will see how I feel about that when the time comes round.)
But this evening, I had one of those ideas that ‘takes itself for a walk’, and I thought I would pick it up, and let it wander up and down my keyboard for a bit.
Here goes.
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[You need to imagine this as a double page spread: one half has a child’s response, the other half has the adult’s response. But the recurring phrase ‘How did that happen?’ needs to sit across both halves of the page, at the bottom, so that it applies to both.
I’m going to mark them C for child and A for adult, just so you can follow whose ideas are whose, as they unfold.]
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C: I lost my new sticker! I’m sure I put it somewhere. YES! I already checked my coat pocket. Of course I did.
A: Time for another haircut for him already? Looks like his hair filled out fast.
How did that happen?
C: My water fell off the table. I didn’t touch it! I was just eating my dinner and my elbow dusted the cup a bit.
A: All of a sudden, there’s an inch of ankle below those pyjamas. I’m sure she hasn’t grown that quickly – has she?
How did that happen?
C: Mum! Mum! Look! It snowed last night. It’s up to the back door already, but there wasn’t any when I went to bed.
A: No Nativity play this year. They don’t do them any more when they get ‘big’.
How did that happen?
C: Dad! There’s no pocket money left in my wallet. I know I didn’t spend it – well not much. Only part of it went on sweets.
A: Don’t tell me we’ve run out of milk…I bought a big jug of it only yesterday.
How did that happen?
C: Mum! The sweet shop stopped selling sherbet fountains. They’ve always sold sherbet fountains.
A: I thought she didn’t like the new girl in her class – and here they are playing together.
How did that happen?
C: Dad! You don’t need to pick me up – I can reach it myself.
A: He can’t be up to my shoulder already – can he?
How did that happen?
[Then there’s a double page spread with lots of different ‘reasons why’, interspersed with each other]
It’s Christmas already…I put it in my bag…He had two bowls of cereal before bedtime…The shop owner doesn’t like sherbet fountains – they don’t sell…It is time for a haircut – his hair grows faster in the summer…She’s in third grade now – they do a Christmas concert instead….I just got bigger, that’s all…The snow fell really fast…I didn’t see my cup was on the edge of the table…I forgot I owed Dad some money too…she’s having a growth spurt…he’s twelve already…the new girl likes making up stories too…
[and at the bottom of the page]
…that’s how it happened.
[Ideally I’d like the end papers of the book to pick up some images from the story – including showing where the missing sticker ended up.]
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I wanted to show how both child and adult can be surprised, at the same time, but over completely different things. The child is still discovering and exploring; the adult is realising that the child is growing up, and seeing how fast time is moving on.
I didn’t want to take the exploring too far – it is still a picture book. No need for the child to be grown up by the end, or the adult to be at the empty nest point. But I did want to show a sense of the child maturing, over the course of the story – that some of the early concerns are superceded by more grown-up ones.
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I think this could take some more work – I’d quite like the child and the adult to be in the same visual scene, united by that, if still separated by their different ‘how did that happen?’ concerns. It could go through seasons in the year – or rooms in the house – or some other device that offers movement to the story.
I don’t know how much a child would want to read the adult’s thoughts – but they do hear the adult ask ‘how did that happen?’, so it might still work as a book for the child too.
The repetition of ‘how did that happen?’ is aimed at the child – and poking fun at some of the incredulity of how things ‘do’ happen in life, sometimes seemingly overnight.