Maybe a Little Bit Intresting After All

Rilla isn’t sure she likes the look of Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House. “Hmm.” She eyes it skeptically. “It doesn’t really look Intresting.”

“I think you’ll like it,” I say. “It’s about a big city growing up around this little pink house.”

Pink is the key word in that sentence. She’ll give almost anything a chance, if there’s pink involved.

“Hot pink,” she murmurs approvingly, studying the cover. There is no higher praise.

“Let’s give it a try,” I suggest. “We can read something else afterward.”

“Roxaboxen.”

“Again?”

She has a laugh her sisters call the Evil Chipmunk. “Of course! It’s my favorite book.”

Huck climbs half on top of me and begins to count the trees around the little pink house. He’s very into counting, these days.

I love quiet books like The Little House, the kind that tiptoe their way into a child’s heart. The house is built, the countryside blooms, the seasons change. The sun arcs across the page and this must be pored over, wait, Mommy, don’t turn the page yet. And then the next spread, the calendar of moons. We must pause while Rilla touches each crescent and disk, naming the days. The road comes rolling out from the distant city; that’s Huck’s page to study. Steam shovel, big rocks, little rocks, tar, steamroller. He could stay there all day. But the city is encroaching, surrounding, swallowing the little pink house, and Rilla has picked up the urgency. We have to read quickly now; she needs to know. Trolley line, elevated train, subway, skyscrapers, you can hardly see the poor house.

It’s magical, you know, when the movers come to carry it away. A house on the back of a truck! Both children are astounded at this marvel. They’d have taken unicorns and dragons in stride, but a house riding along the road to a new hill in the countryside: clearly this is a wonder of the world.

Later, when Huck is napping, Rilla pounces on me, brandishing the book. The pink house winks from the cover.

“Again?”

“Yes. It’s my favorite book.”