Longing for Mystery

When preschoolers inhabited the Owensby house, bedtime included story time. On some nights, Andrew, Meredith, or Patrick would choose a short and frankly tedious book designed to teach colors or animal names. Inevitably, they would insist that we read it again and again before they drifted off to sleep.

More often, the kids selected a book that we parents enjoyed reading at least as much as the children did. The tenderness of Goodnight Moon stilled my soul no matter how many times we read it. And the humor and weirdness of Where the Wild Things Are made my efficient, practical adult heart vulnerable, at least for a few minutes, to the playful magic that children encounter on any ordinary day.

Roald Dahl—author of Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—once wrote:

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around…