The Growing Story

I read The Growing Story by Ruth Krauss and Helen Oxenbury to Finny before his nap today and fell in love. I fall in love every time I read it. There is so much I love about it, it’s hard to know where to begin. I love the little boy. I love that he has just one pair of warm pants and just one woolen coat and I love that he puts them in a box and climbs up on a chair and puts them away on the closet shelf for the summer.

I love the farm that he and his mother live on. The beautiful orchards, the pear trees, the wandering chickens. I love how adorable his mom looks in her red polka-dot head scarf. I love the way he follows his mom around and helps her with the farm chores.

And I love how concerned his is about growing up:

The chicks were chickens. The chickens were nearly up to the little boy’s middle…The puppy was a dog. The dog was nearly up to the little boy’s head. The little boy looked at the chickens and the dog. “You both have grown up. I haven’t grown up. I am still little.”


This story has gorgeous, lush, tender illustrations—the white blossoms on the orchard trees, the fall leaves blowing in the storm, the boy and his mother in the looking-glass.

And the writing is nearly perfect. Short, simple, rhythmic sentences and a sense of the passing of time. The honeysuckle bloomed. The roses bloomed. The corn grew as high as a man. The pears were ripening.

But I love it most of all because I snuggle up beneath a red blanket and read it beside my little boy…who is growing up…before my very eyes.

I don’t love everything about that, however. I don’t love the crying and the tantrums. I don’t love the constant, constant, constant bonking of the head. And I don’t love the little bitty white lies that are starting to pop up from time to time.

But here is what I do love…

I love that after a backyard picnic, I found him huddled up on the couch beneath a blanket eating a peanut butter sandwich…naked. I love that he doesn’t go anywhere without his little orange cat and his binoculars and that sometimes he puts on swim goggles to play in the yard. I love that he will carry his heavy black stool across the house so that he can reach the light switch to be in the dark with his flashlight. I love that he is very concerned about what I wear and prefers that I wear my green dress so that I look like Princess Fionna. I love that he loves his new fort from Grandma and that he’s so proud she made it just for him. I also love that last night after dinner, he invited Charlie into his fort and they both just sat in there giggling their heads off…so I put down my dish towel and I crawled in too. I love how proud he was of himself yesterday morning at the park when he climbed up the big kid ladder at the big kid park all by his big kid self, and I love that yesterday on our walk, we spent fifteen minutes just sitting in a pile of yellow leaves. I love that when we had to say goodbye to his friend Caroline, he said in these exact words, “But Caroline, I thought you would be joining me for lunch today?”

I love all the fun and funny new things that come along with Finny as he grows up and I love that at three years old for all his new big kid discoveries, he is still my little boy and he still enjoys a good snuggle and a great book with his mommy, whom by the way, he still--to my great delight--totally adores.