Saturday, February 13, 2010

Too Many Toys



Title : Too Many Toys (Scholastic Book)
Author and Illustrator : David Shannon



I guess all "grownup" minds(atleast I have) must have wondered at some point seeing the young minds in action - why and how do they prefer playing with the boxes, the covers, the wrappers, the thermocol toy holders, the tags of new clothes, the small manuals/handbooks that come with the toys - than with the actual toys. I remember during our move to Bangalore, our kids were having the best playtime ever with so many boxes/cartons of all sizes, shapes and colours around us all the time.

Here is a story of Spencer, who has plenty of toys thanks to his parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, teachers and the list goes on and on, who keep gifting him toys on almost all occasions. Now the state of the house is such that the living room, bedroom, bathroom, backyard and even the stairs - have his toys strewn all around. But there is a limit to everything. One fine day Mommy decides to do some filtering of the toys and takes the help of Spencer. As expected Spencer doesn't want to part with any of his toys even the headless figures or one-eared bunnies but after a lot of haggling, warnings, arguments, discussions and trading Mommy comes out victorious and they pack a box full of toys which can be given away. After all this long and arduous exercise when she finally goes to pick up the box to load the car with, she gets the shock of her life because there is something that Spencer has selected from those toys which he cannot give away.

The best thing I like about the scholastic books is the neat clear text and beautiful illustrations.

My son just loved this book. I could easily guess why, whenever I clean their room, I make a bag ready to be thrown in the trash can and he manages to find his treasures from that bag and keeps them safely in a big box which has been christened by me as "Kachara dabba (garbage box) of maximum utility". I am sure he can even find the utility (some project idea) of dead flies (some day) and would not allow me to throw them either.
Crossposted at LiterarySojourn

6 comments:

sathish said...

very interesting Vibha. It is surprising what all stuff kids can play with.

This post reminds me of another David Shannon's book - 'No David!' - another riot of laughter that the whole family enjoyed immensely.

Also reminded me of toy story 3 that would be released in 2010 :)

Unknown said...

A great subject that every kid can whole heartedly relate to, and when this happens, the book is a sure hit!
Kachra dabba of utility...ha haa...lol Vibha!

Choxbox said...

All children and their mommies can relate to this :)

Btw totally coincidentally we picked up this beautiful book by Scholastic today, also by David Shannon - called ' A Bad Case of Stripes'!

Vibha said...

Sathish - we want to pick some other David books too.

Meera - yeah :) He very possessively guards this box, doesn't allow his sister to touch anything from there!!!

CB - Great! David's books are fun to read :)

sandhya said...

So true. My daughter A and I have tried this- selecting toys to give away and putting them all back because she couldn't part with them- 3-4 times. Finally I have given up and am waiting for her to grow up a bit to carry out the exercise. Yet she plays with the trappingsso creatively! Can totally relate to this.

Tharini said...

Whta a cutie of a book!! I remember reading No,David, which was such a lot of fun with my older one. This, he will certainly like!

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