Granny Smith

I was charmed by this corrugated-board book by the granddaughter of my good friend and fellow writer, Mary Parks. Lucy Parks Urbano was 5 years old when she drew the front cover and the inside of the back cover of this book. She is 6 now. The story, entirely her own, was dictated.

This is the entire front cover

The following is the dictated story itself:
Chapter 1
Once upon a time a family that loved to dance danced every night - the foxtrot. And the foxtrot was a very important dance to them because they were very rich and in those days rich people usually ate foxes and bagels and cream cheese for dinner. So they liked to do the foxtrot. The sister danced with the brother and the mother danced with the father.

One night after they had done the foxtrot six times because the sister thought it was so fun the brother said that he didn't want to do it ever again. The mother said it depends on you and the next morning when the brother and sister woke up they were out of the house in one minute but too soon the mother realized that they had run away with all their clothes but they were so rich that they had 89 nightgowns, 76 shirts and pants and 11 hats and 89 jackets. And the mother and the father looked out the window and saw a carriage rolling away and they thought it must be the carriage that they had gone in. So they just stayed there for a million years getting richer and richer.

And one hot summer day the brother and sister came home.

I abridged this inside back cover by cutting a bit off the left side as it had no drawing on it.