Jo Empson | Reading With Rhythm

The landscape around here is pretty dry and crunchy. We haven’t had any rain in quite a long time. The Mom Person worries that we will “Never Ever” have rain again! She gets these crazy thoughts sometimes.

Walker worries that we will “Never Ever” have any peace and quiet again with Dogzilla living with us. He’s a big worrier.

I sometimes read with kids who say they will “Never Ever” be able to read all those words. That makes me sad. I don’t know a lot about time. But I believe that Never Ever is a very long time. Kind of like infinity!

I’m not a “Never Ever” kind of girl. I’m more a “Maybe Soon” kind of girl. My eyes are always open looking for possibilities. I KNOW that eventually tennis balls and french fries will fall from the sky. You just have to be ready for it with your eyes open!

Some folks are always walking around with their eyes closed and miss all those possibilities that are out there all around.

This little book – NEVER EVER is about a little girl like that.

Never Ever
by Jo Empson (who also did that incredible book Rabbityness)
published by Child’s Play in 2012

It begins —
Nothing exciting ever happens to me!
Never, ever!
Humph…..

This is a wondrous book! And so fun to read with a buddy! A cute little red headed girl wanders through the countryside carrying her stuffed rabbit and complaining about how NOTHING exciting EVER happens to her! There aren’t a lot of words here. Lots of never, ever, ever, never, ever, never. But a whole lot of story is going on in the illustrations! Everywhere she steps she juuuusssttt misses something pretty exciting. If she would only open her eyes!!!! It’s hard not to yell that at her! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!! LOOK AT THE WORLD AROUND YOU!

But she never ever does.

I am participating in a reading challenge posed by Bruce at The Bookshelf Gargoyle. The Small Fry Safari has 8 categories of titles to be completed. I believe that Never Ever falls into category #3, a book with a specific time in the title. To see the complete list of categories and books visit Mr Bruce on his bookshelf HERE.

Never say never – and always be open to possibility!

Keep your eyes and your heart open!
Wishing you a world of possibilities – and the eyes to see it with!
Rhythm

Last week before all this icy weather locked us in, my buddy Walker had an opportunity to go do some painting with Mrs K’s 2nd graders. Every year they read a story about an elephant that paints and invite Walker to come demonstrate how dogs can paint too! This is the 3rd year that Walker has visited them and he sure has a fun time!

We also went to the library last week and came home with the perfect go-along book.

Rabbityness is written and illustrated by Jo Empson. It was published in 2012 by Child’s Play. (Please click on Ms Empson’s name and visit her lovely website!)

The artwork in this book is extraordinary! The story is reminiscent of the Heart and the Bottle. It begins “Rabbit liked doing rabbity things.” Like hopping and jumping and washing his ears. Each of these pages shows a black rabbit on a white page in sparse green grass doing rabbity things. Then we see “Rabbit also liked doing unrabbity things.” “He liked painting …”

And there suddenly is a BURST of color like fireworks. Painting and music made Rabbit very happy and he filled the woods with both. This made all the other rabbits happy too. But one day Rabbit disappeared. Now the book is back to black and gray. The other rabbits were very sad and didn’t know what to do. They bottled up their hearts. Then they found that Rabbit had left a deep, dark hole and in the hole were some gifts — paints and musical instruments. The rabbits unbottled their hearts and started filling the woods with color and music and discovered that this let them remember Rabbit and they were all happy again.

Rabbityness is about individuality and knowing your own heart. Like the Heart and the Bottle, Rabbityness is also about loss and finding your heart again. The two books are so alike and yet so different. This one is very “Walker” with his splashes of color everywhere. He likes doing undoggy things like painting. And eating bark off of trees. But he sure spreads JOY along with paint splatters with his happy tail.

I wish you a Doggyness day full of laughter and color and music. Dance and be creative and Joyful!