Blog Post 1: My First Recollection of A Children's Book

Although I can’t quite recall my very first children’s book, there are a number of memorable bedtime stories and other tales that my parents and particularly my father used to read to my sister and me. The two earliest and most memorable were I’m A Little Mouse and Tikki Tikki Tembo. It was so influential that when I read the books to my students well over a decade later I subconsciously used the exact same character voices that my father did as though the book could only be read one way. Reading with Daddy always made the stories that much more fun and memorable for that reason.

I’m A Little Mouse was a “touch and feel book” as Daddy put it about a baby mouse searching for his mother. The author used different materials to help its pre-school readers differentiate between the animals. In his squeaky voice the little mouse asked bears, fish, turtles, and even snakes, “I have fuzzy grey fur and a longgggg pink tail… I’m a little mouse! Are you a mouse too?” The turtle responded, “I have a lummmpy bummmpy shell, and I don’t move very fast. I’m not a mouse, I’m a turtle!” (in my best impression of Daddy’s slow deep turtle voice). To this day, I still remember the lines of all our favorite stories like clockwork.

Tikki Tikki Tembo was a Chinese folktale about two young brothers who were treated unequally by their mother. The older one was clearly more appreciated by his family and community for being the first-born. Even as an adult I sometimes reflect on the lessons I learned from this book when my sister and I are at odds about equal treatment from my parents.