Yesterday I took inspiration from Not Now Bernard.
It got me thinking, as I was reading bedtime stories last night, there is inspiration in just about every bedtime story!
I challenge you to find a story that doesn’t have a brilliant message that makes you think and grow.
My two favorites
A Squash and a Squeeze, when the Old Lady thinks her house is too small a wise old man tells her to fill it full of animals. She fills it full of cows, pigs, cats, hens - and then after a while asks them all to leave. Suddenly she sees lots of space in her house. If anything the lockdown taught us it was that we can tolerate and handle more change and uncertainty than perhaps we realise, and as lockdown rules lift what is the space revealing? Maybe space to think we didn’t think we had, we see the space to think was actually there all along. So now the question is - what do we do with it!
The Heuys in The New Jumper, the Heuys act the same, look the same, do the same, until Rupert Huey has an idea to wear a Jumper. At first the other Hueys think he is mad. But then his friend thinks its quite cool to be different so also wears a jumper, then all the Hueys think its quite cool to be different and all begin wearing jumpers. Then Rupert decides to wear a hat. I have always been fascinated with how fast ‘trends’ spread globally. Especially ideas that we think are cool because they are different, and then we all end up doing them. Sometimes it can feel comforting that, even though there are many differences, essentially, when it comes down to it we are all 7 year olds who like Unicorns given half a chance. Sobering to remember when we feel like the World is too big to comprehend.
So. If you need a bit of inspiration today.
Forget self help books.
Forget the Ted Talks.
Forget Simon, Brene, Adam, Oprah, Michelle, Elizabeth, David.
Pick up a children’s book. Any. And see what message you can take from it.
Would love you share what you think in the comments below.
eleanor
My wife’s an English teacher … so, I quite often read teenage fiction because ‘it’s there’ (in fact, it’s everywhere!! haha) …