It was the 'mythological' that did it: tapped straight in to my middle-class misconceptions that if it's inspired by Ancient Greece it must be good.
And reading it was fun. Wittily and inventively illustrated by Sara Fanelli, it got me thinking I might dig out some of the stories in full. We counted Scylla's heads, we spotted the two closed eyes of Argus, we decided that Pegasus was our favourite.
Lights out. 'Dream really happy dreams'.*
Five minutes later. 'I can't dream happy dreams I can't. I can only dream of monsters'
At least, I hear you say, she'd absorbed the lessons of the night: now she will know her harpies from her furies - her classical education has begun.
No, I'm afraid not. The monster that would stalk her dreams was tyrannosaurus rex.
Thank heaven (Zeus?) for Pegasus. 'I like horses. I like that he has wings. I like that he carries the stars. And there are children. He's my favourite'. Also, we decided, if T rex did show up (apparently being extinct doesn't count in dreams), then Pegasus could whisk her up so she could bop him on the nose (while he scrabbles widely but ineffectually with his pathetically small hands) before flying off to safety over the mountain to swim with mermaids and dolphins in a beautiful lake.
This still wasn't quite cutting the mustard (I don't like dolphins. I like mermaids though) so I laid it on thicker, with the application of a fairy godmother who would turn all the monsters into frogs (no, into butterflies - ah my daughter with her poetic soul!). And last but by no means least, the magic spotty blanket that would make them all dizzy so they'd fall over.
Brilliant. So instead of giving her a solid grounding in the classical tales, I've sent her off to the land of nod with a rattlebag of nonsense.
Ah well, whatever it takes for a good night's sleep.
*Charlie and Lola afficionados among you will recognise this as a quote from 'I do not ever want my teeth to fall out'. Now absorbed into our nightly lexicon ...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment