can manage to turn rhetorical questions into absolute, declarative, unchallengeable sentences, then the book can be completed sometime before a toddler reaches puberty.
Each of Scarry’s books ends with some sort of surprise denouement that should be perfectly obvious from page one where the “hints” and leading questions—“Why do you suppose he did that?”—start. But they always manage to conclude just illogically enough to titillate youthful minds and make adult readers feel like brainless fools for not having seen it coming all along.
Some of Scarry’s books have no plots at all but fall under the category of “educational books,” that is, volumes that offer counting, letters, or colors for identification. My children particularly favor these items on Scarry’s literary menu, although I rarely manage to ask and explain my way through B or 2 , perhaps, when the multitude of superfluous drawings and irrelevant activities causes a logjam of confusion that would defy Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox to untangle:
DADDY: How many airplanes do you see here?
WESLEY: One, Two, Three!
DADDY: No, count again.
WESLEY: One . . . Two . . . Three!
DADDY: No, son. Count once more.
VIRGINIA: [quickly] One-Two-Three. There are three, Daddy.
DADDY: It’s Wesley’s turn to count the page.
WESLEY: Yeah, Virginia, [with equal rapidity] One-two-three!
DADDY: No, there are two airplanes.
WESLEY: [accusingly] What’s this one, then?
VIRGINIA: [supportive] Yeah, what’s this one, then?
DADDY: Oh, I see. That’s a balloon.
WESLEY: That’s not a balloon.
DADDY: Yes, it is. That’s a hot-air balloon.
WESLEY: It’s got people in it.
DADDY: Well, yeah, but—
WESLEY: It goes up into the air, doesn’t it?
DADDY: Yeah, but it’s not an airplane.
VIRGINIA: Where’s the balloon. I don’t see a balloon.
DADDY: There’s the balloon, Virginia. It goes up in the air, and it carries people, but it’s not—
WESLEY: What makes it go up in the air?
DADDY: It’s a hot-air balloon. It goes up because it’s full of gas.
WESLEY: Gas?
DADDY: Yeah, like hot air.
WESLEY: Like in the car?
DADDY: No, that’s gasoline. Not gas. Gas is the . . . uh . . .
WESLEY: Hot air?
VIRGINIA: [blowing on Wesley] Like that?
WESLEY: Make her stop!
DADDY: No, not like that. Like hot air. Like . . . gas.
WESLEY: Like a poot?
VIRGINIA: [giggling] A poot!
DADDY: No. Well, yes. Sort of—
VIRGINIA: Wesley pooted!
WESLEY: Did not!
DADDY: Look, there are two airplanes on this page. Both have mice in them. See? This one’s a balloon. It looks kind of like an airplane, but it’s not. It’s crashed anyway.
VIRGINIA: One, two.
WESLEY: It’s my turn to count! Make her stop counting on my page!
DADDY: [turning the page] Okay, how many airplanes are on this page.
VIRGINIA: One-two-three-four!
DADDY: No, there are three. That’s a helicopter, Virginia.
WESLEY: Can we read the Goldbug book, next?
Usually at this point, Wesley refuses to count any more at all, and Virginia is so fascinated by what the worm, doggie, or kitty is doing with kites, flags and windsocks that she can’t concentrate beyond C or 3 . Steadfastly, I am denied permission to skip pages or provide easy answers to speed things along; and as I anxiously watch the sun rising on our evening “Weadbook!” session, I wearily manage to get up to M or 9 before I attempt to distract my wide-awake audience with the offer of a midnight snack—or breakfast.
I have never consciously purchased but one Richard Scarry book. I don’t know of anyone who has deliberately bought more than two. But only one in the house is sufficient. Amoeba-like, they multiply right on the battered pressed wood bookshelves in a child’s room, drawing nourishment, no doubt, from the plethora of questions and abundance of curiosity they arouse in developing minds. Although I read to my children nightly and did so since Wesley was three months old, I don’t really remember reading a