I'd forgotten quite how charming Pippi Longstocking was until I started reading it to Crabkid over the past month. Like many a little girl before her, Crabkid adores Pippi and is fascinated that she doesn't have to go to school, has no parents to tell her when to go to bed, and keeps a horse on her porch. Plus she rolls cookie dough out onto her kitchen floor, scrubs said floor with brushes attached to her feet like ice skates, possesses a pet monkey with a straw hat, and wrestles the strongest man in the world...and wins.
She's also a Thing-Finder, teaching her little friends Tommy and Annika to keep their eyes open for treasure of all kinds: "lumps of gold, ostrich feathers, dead rats, candy snapcrackers, little tiny screws, and things like that." When I read this chapter to Crabkid she was thrilled by it, being something of a Thing-Finder herself. And in this regard the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Now, there are many things I'm not very good at as a mother, and many things I'm no good at as a human being, but I think even Pippi would be impressed by my Thing-Finding. I kick serious Thing-Finding heinie. (Read more about how one couple turned their collecting hobby into a way of life.)
When I was ten I was given a Swiss Army knife for my birthday. I'd begged for it because I had a fantasy that I could use it to dig up treasure. I was particularly taken with the idea that I might find an old map or a secret diary. (I was reading lots of Nancy Drew and British mystery series in which maps and diaries and secret codes lurked inside walls and beneath floors.) Naturally my mother wasn't too keen on having the oak floors of her Victorian cottage dug up (which I attempted to do after knocking on the various planks and selecting ones that sounded promisingly hollow), so after just one or two knocks and stabs, the hunt was abandoned. A few years later we moved, and I was allowed up to the rickety, ancient attic for a one-time exploration. I brought my flashlight and pocket knife and started digging, knocking at floorboards. One sounded hollow and I pushed it on one end. It flipped up easily, and underneath...really, truly, honestly...was a 100-year-old diary.
The diary I found had been written in 1882 by a young teenage girl. It was wrapped in rotting cloth, and just intact enough to make sense of. I spent countless hours deciphering the spidery handwriting, reading and re-reading the girl's stories about stealing apples from the neighbor's tree and riding in a horse and trap with her crazy cousin, who was not fond of wearing long skirts.
You think I'm making this up, but I'm not. Crabmommy may whine, but she does not lie to you on this here blog--and she knows a good Thing when she sees it, even now. Just last weekend Crabkid and I walked on a gray windy Pacific beach, keeping our eyes open for interesting shells and stones....and somehow, randomly, we found a sand-encrusted metal toy soldier, wrapped tightly in a clump of seaweed. I don't really think he'd qualify as ancient treasure, but he does have an intriguingly scabby weatherbeaten look to him that made for a thrilling discovery!
Thing-Finder I am, but Thing-Keeper? I'm not so hot at that. Though it's easily the best object I ever found in my life, I managed to lose my precious antique diary. My mom and I put it somewhere so safe that we no longer know where to find it. Maybe Crabkid will one day. For now, she's enjoying reading about Pippi and her friends' findings. And though Crabkid couldn't quite believe it when Tommy happens to find a tiny notebook and a silver pencil inside a hollow tree, I could. (Check out these creative ways to display your child's most treasured finds.)
Got a Thing-Finding story to share? Or maybe just a good book rec?
Related: Read reviews for all the latest books for kids.
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