You CAN Judge a Book By Its Cover (Sometimes)

The other night the kids and I cuddled up to read books before bed. Two of the books we read were The Cat in the Hat and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Even though we have read these books countless times and my kids have had the same reaction to them, I never really thought about how some aspects of their personalities are easily determined by reading these two books. In fact a stranger could sit down and read these books with them and determine which one is willing to bend the truth and which one isn't. And which one follows the rule and which one doesn't care to follow the rules. 

If you haven't ever read The Cat in the Hat, which I find hard to believe that someone hasn't read it at least once, the Cat comes and makes a big mess of the house when two little kids [Sally and Nick] are at home alone while their mom is out. (Side note, in this day and age I don't believe any kids that little would be left at home alone but I am assuming when Dr. Seuss wrote the book the laws were a little more lax on this issue). By the end of the book, the Cat puts it all back right before the mom walks in the door. Then there is a line that reads, "Should we tell her…Now what should we do…What would YOU do, If your mother asked you?" So Mae answered immediately that she would tell me. Whitaker's response, "No I would not say anything."

The next book we read was a newish book called Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! We have read this book hundreds of times but it is an easy read (meaning short) and the kids love it. If you don't know about this book, essentially a bus driver leaves a bus parked and tells the reader Don't let the pigeon drive the bus. Insert pigeon who comes by page after page and tries to convince the reader to let him drive the bus by asking questions/pestering them. As you can see this book was designed to get the reader to say, No and I can only assume to make them thinking that following the rules is cool. Because following the rules is cool, right? It comes as no surprise that Mae always says "NO" and Whitaker always, always says "YES!! [with much enthusiasm]