Helen Oxenbury. Eating Out. New York: Penguin Books, 1983
The thing about reading with toddlers--well, really, with any child who cannot yet read themselves--is that you have to read the book. So you must find a book not just that you both like, but rather that speaks to both of you, because with toddlers especially, you will read favorite books over and over and over.
Personally, I never tire of Helen Oxenbury. These days, with older children of my own, I miss her tremendously. Her illustrations capture the essence of young children: their solid, round bodies, the way they squat to look at things on the ground, their faces flushed with feeling. But more than that, her stories brilliantly recapitulate life with young children, which is why they are so appealing to both children and their parents--everyone can recognize themselves, and each other, in these books that are so faithful to our experiences.
Eating Out is one of a series she wrote for children between the ages of two and four. It opens with a small image of an androgynous child standing over a ball and broken vase, looking up with interest at its mother, who stands looking despairingly down at the mess, one hand resting on her hip, the other on her brow. And, like all truly great picture books, there is a delicate tension between the image and the text, for this image is followed with these words: "Mommy said, 'I'm too tired to cook.' 'Me, too,' said Daddy. 'Let's go out for dinner.'"
What a fatal error! From the condescending waiter--"'I suppose you need a highchair,' the waiter said to me."--to the hot and crowded room, from the long wait for the food to the inevitable need to go the bathroom just when the food finally arrives, from the overwhelmed and overwhelming boredom to the dreadful disaster involving children under tables, waiters and trays of spaghetti, it is a singularly bad idea. And everyone look much happier at home in the kitchen, eating cereal. This book is so funny and so true.
But don't even bother looking in new bookstores for this book--it is out of print. Happily, you can still find it at abebooks, and maybe other used bookstores.
