Every night we put our daughter Katie up on the big bed where Trish and I sleep.  She gets her hair braided to keep it from tangling in the night.  Billy (15) lays across the end of the bed, and Stephanie (18) comes in to sit at the foot of the bed.  While Trish fixes Katie’s hair, I read her bedtime story.  It’s become quite the ritual, and we’ve been through a lot of stories, and a lot of words.

What I’ve noticed though – most notably over the past few nights – is that you can’t trust those old stories to read quite the way they did when you were younger.  For one thing, there is a lot of content that is just no longer acceptable or appropriate.  There are words that no longer mean what they used to mean in general conversation.  Terminology and language are a shifting tide, and you can get caught in the undertow pretty quickly if you don’t pay attention.  It can make for some pretty tricky ad lib reworking of the old classics.

The book above is our current storybook – we’re about three quarters of the way through it.  It contains works by many well remembered and loved storytellers of days gone by, and overall we’ve enjoyed them all. There have, however, been moments.  For instance, I had to reword the title AND each instance of one word from that title when reading “The Blue Eyed Pussy”.  I know, I know, what am I, eight?  Remember, two teenagers and their mother listen too, and pretty much no way they are containing themselves if I read anything other than “The Blue Eyed Kitten”.

So the other night was the kicker.  We started a new story – “Almost an Ambush” by Le Grand Henderson.  Sounds safe enough, right?  Then you get into the story, and it’s like a Saturday Night Live skit.  We get a snicker from the teenagers when I read a line that states that the two privates in the play army are “Peewee and Floppy the dog”.  Boy child says…”Floppy privates?”  That starts it. Snickers abound.  I am trying to read the story and actually getting a little angry because they are ruining the moment for their little sister, who is too young to understand why they are laughing, and feeling left out.  Trish is snickering too.  I plunge onward.  I grit my teeth and read that the enemy “troop” is led by another boy.  Now I’m in full scowl mode, about to yell at them all to be quiet and listen…when my eyes catch the name of this boy.

I stopped short.  How in hell was I going to read “Stubby Johnson” – at that moment?  How could I not?  How could I even make that up?  From then on, every word, every line, seemed charged with more than it was meant to be.  I mean…STUBBY JOHNSON? (sigh).  We made it through the story, which is about how the dog, Floppy, who the boys were angry at for giving away their position in their game of soldiers on patrol, saves them from being stranded in a collapsed tunnel.  It’s still a good story – but maybe if they ever re-release this old book, they might consider a quick revision.

You can find a full listing of the stories in this book by clicking the image above.