Nighttime Ritual in a Nutshell

My husband has fond memories of the Nutshell Library by Maurice Sendak: Four tiny hardback books with illustrations, one is about the months of the year, one about the letters, one about numbers and one about the importance of caring. His Grandmother had it in her home and he still smiles as he recollects reading them there.

Last year, after we took Angie to the Maurice Sendak exhibit on her birthday, Grandma Phyllis passed the books to us and we have read them to Angie occasionally. They sit on one of the shelves in our home office. Recently she was exploring and found them. She brought them to me with a "Look what I found! Books!"

So every night for the past month or so, I have to read the entire Nutshell Library to Angie before she will settle down to sleep. She has even taken to reciting them with me. She points out Pierre making a guest appearance in "Alligators All Around" and finds that Johnny from "One was Johnny" is again rudely disturbed by the March winds in Chicken Soup with Rice.

It is cozy, sitting together on our worn out office chair, reading little stories and rhymes.