Sodasodasarsaprilla

Ah, the kids and I have been reading the most lovely chapter book: Twig (Elizabeth Orton Jones). I am smitten. It is the tale of a little girl who imagines a fairy world in her dirty backyard, becoming a tiny person herself. There's a talking Sparrow, an Elf, the Queen of the Fairies, and Lord Buzzle Cobb-Webb. It's just delightful... I was liking it all along - something for both Sterling and Siena in it, a bit of magic in the words, and delightful pictures...

And then I came to this sequence. I thought about describing it, but it is so sweet, I'll just risk copyright and put it all in... Siena was entranced by this exchange (the tiniest bit of background - Twig is a little girl who, by magic - you might say imagination - has become small. Several chapters in, the Queen of the Fairies comes to visit, and invites Twig to Fairy Land):

"I wish I didn't have this old dress on," she said.
"Why do you wish that?" asked the Queen.
"Well, who ever heard of going to Fairyland with a plain ordinary dress on? Just look at it, Your Majesty!" said Twig. "And just look at these old shoes!"
The Queen looked at them and smiled. "They're only on the outside of you, Twig," she said. "It doesn't matter how plain or how ordinary or how old the things on the outside are, you know. It's what is inside that matters."
"Inside!" said Twig, very much surprised.
The Queen looked up at the little round bud at the top of the dandelion's stalk. "Do you know what is inside of that plain ordinary little round bud?" she asked.
"Yes, Your Majesty," answered Twig. "A beautiful flower."
"There's something just as beautiful inside of you," said the Queen.
"Something - beautiful! Inside of - me!" said Twig. "Honestly, Your Majesty! How could there be?"
"How could there be a beautiful flower inside of the little round bud?" asked the Queen.
Twig lifted her shoulders several times. "I don't know!" she said. "There just is, that's all."
"And there 'just is' something beautiful inside of you," said the Queen. "It's called imagination."

Ah - something beautiful inside that trumps the outside. What a perfect thing for our little ones to learn early on. We have a few chapters left, but I couldn't wait until then to write and encourage you all to read this one for yourselves.