Teddy

Every so often we hear about a kid who can't separate from his or her teddy bear. The kid views the teddy bear the way an atom needs a proton - you simply become negative after losing one single proton.

A much overlooked teddy bear is another wet teddy bear that we all keep one at home. If you haven't heard of your wet teddy bear, you ought to read the picture book Cheer Up Your Teddy Bear, Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton. I read this book with my daughter recently, and found out about the very wet teddy bear hidden in a toy-box. The toy-box belonged to a little girl named Emily Brown.

Emily Brown had been having great fun camping and then picked up this wet tearful teddy bear. What follows is classic contrast between Emily Brown and Tearful Teddybear. Emily first invited Tearful Teddybear to the Outback of Australia, and thought that lighting campfires and spotting kangaroos would cheer up Tearful Teddybear. They didn't. So Emily took Tearful Teddybear to the wild woods of Yellowstone Park, where they saw small bears and large bears and black bears and grizzly bears.

"But there is no teddy bears," wept the Tearful Teddybear.

Emily Brown tried many ways, but each time Tearful Teddybear repeated, "Po-o-o-o-o-o-or ME ... po-o-o-o-o-oor ME ... Poor little sad little wet little ME ... I'm a Lonely Only Bear and I'm feeling very blue, I've got no teddy friends and there's nothing here to do ..."

Emily Brown talked over and over again about the magic power of overcoming the weather and gloomy thoughts: that in the hands (or heads) of cheerful boy and girl, the drippy, drizzly, wet weekend will never be too wet to enjoy life. If you're a believer that the story should finish with the sun coming out, think again. What impresses me most in this book is how Emily beats the weather, and be happy. The moral here is simple: No one can make sew our mouths upside down without our consent.