Hope's Favorite Picture Book--gotta read....

The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant is a must read. I discovered our long forgotten copy under a peice of furniture while cleaning last week. Starla thought it was funny but it communicates an entirely separate storyline on an adult level dealing with processing grief and loss--kind of like the movie "Up" does--which I also consider a gotta see movie.

In the story, the old woman has lost all her friends to death and she responds to the pain with self-protection by naming only things that she's confident will outlive her--like her chair, bed, house and car. One day a stray puppy enters the scene and wants to be her friend but she refuses to take him in because then she would have to name him and she worries that he might not outlive her. She feeds him every day and sends him away. She does this for months until he stops coming. After several days, she goes looking for him at the pound and finds him there. At that point, she decides to take him home with her and names him "Lucky". Here is her explanation of the name. "The old woman thought a moment. She thought of all the old, dear friends with names whom she had outlived. She saw their smiling faces and remembered their lovely names, and she thought how lucky she had been to have known these friends. She thought what a lucky old woman she was." "Lucky ends up riding in "Betsy" (her car), sitting in "Fred" (her chair) shedding dog hair in "Franklin" (her house) and sleeping in "Roxanne" (her bed). And they both lived happily ever after.....