One of the joys of living with a small child is that you get to revisit old book favourites, as well as discover new ones. Again, and again, and again, and again. Books are one of Rachel's favourite things and so there are a number of her favourites (A Bit Lost, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, One Ted Fell Out of Bed to name just three) that I can now recite, word perfect, without the book in front of me. This is handy when you're trying to entertain her in the morning without waking up properly.
A downside of this repeated reading and retelling (often three or four times in a row without pause) is that you start thinking too much about the content. The Tiger Who Came To Tea (TTWCTT from now on) is a prime example. It's a classic, and I remember it fondly from my childhood. But how dated it is. With each reading, Sophie's downtrodden, idiot Mummy irritates me more. She's stupid: she rules out all the "safe" visitors who could be arriving at the front door, and still sends Sophie to open it. She's helpless without Sophie's Daddy: when the tiger eats all the food in the house, and even drinks all the water in the tap, she has no idea how to handle the situation of having nothing for Daddy's supper...it takes the man of the house to arrive home, sit in state in his armchair to hear the tale, and think up the revolutionary idea that they will go out to eat. Rocket science. And I don't like her tights, but that's my personal taste.
I have therefore been amusing myself, when reading TTWCTT, with alternate scenarios from the modern world:
- The tiger turns up but no-one is in as Sophie's mum hasn't yet collected her from nursery
- Sophie's mum decides not to open the door as the Tesco delivery has already come, the Amazon delivery isn't due until tomorrow, and Daddy has his key, and it just isn't safe these days to open the door unless you know who it is.
- Sophie's mum opens the door herself, deeming it too dangerous to send her child, and gets eaten by the tiger.
- Sophie and her daddy are having tea in the kitchen as it's the day he looks after her.
- Sophie and her mummy aren't having tea in the kitchen - what a ridiculous idea, they have ready meals on trays in the living room.
- No-one really cares when the tiger eats everything as they can order a takeaway online anyway.
- After the tiger eats everything, Sophie's mum gets straight online and does a supermarket order. She orders some tiger food, just in case, but unfortunately they make a substitution and they get tiger bread instead...
It may just be me that's amused. I think we need some new books!
