Hiding and Seeking
November 5, 2015 § 7 Comments
It is possible to chart my daughter’s growing up against the backdrop of our games of hide and seek. Not but two years ago, whenever we played hide and seek, I would look up after slowly counting to ten and discover Emily standing but a stone’s throw away, beside a giant bush (beside, not behind, the bush). At which point, I’d do the thing that all parents do at one time or another: I’d turn my back to the bush and speak loudly into the air, I wonder where Emily is hiding. Where, oh where, could she be? To which she’d inevitably blurt out, I’m right HERE, Mommy!
Fast forward to last spring, when my daughter and I were playing hide and seek outside her school after dismissal one afternoon. You have to pick a really good hiding spot, she instructed me, before covering her eyes and commencing her counting. I ran across the lawn, turned down a little garden path, and squatted behind a bench. Moments later, I heard her exclaim, Ready or not here I come! And I waited. I waited some more. I waited so long that my quads started shaking and I thought I might die of boredom, and so I snuck a peek back in her direction. And there she was: climbing a tree at the other end of the lawn, singing gleefully with her friends, our game completely abandoned.
Finally, there was last month, when Emily walked over to where I was seated on the sidelines of the playground and pleaded with me to play with her. I’ll hide first, she proclaimed. And so I covered my eyes and counted to twenty. Ready or not here I come! I started at one end of the playground and methodically worked my way towards the other, bending down to peer under picnic tables and around garden plots. Nothing. I peeked inside the tunnel slide. Nada. I swear to you, it felt like hours had passed, and still I could find no sign of her. I began to run, zig-zagging across stretches of blacktop and grass, my heart pounding, flashes of child kidnappers tearing through my mind (oh God, did I ever warn her about men who approach with promises of puppies?), shouting to my friends and her friends, Where’s Emily? Where is Emily? Have you seen Emily?
It was my son who finally located her: she’s behind that tree. And sure enough, I could see her navy school uniform sticking out from behind a maple at the farthest end of the remotest part of the park. I raced over to her, expecting her to be as frantic as me.
She looked up and beamed. That was a really good hiding spot, don’t you think, Mommy?
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: she had grown up so much. My daughter had transformed into this brave, confident, fiercely independent little girl standing before me. I couldn’t stop the tears from leaking out, as I pulled her close and muttered into her hair, You got me good, little bird. You got me good.
Hide and seek—with its endless opportunities for experimenting with independence and togetherness—just so happens to be the theme of Barbara Joosse and Randy Cecil’s Evermore Dragon (Ages 3-6), a follow-up to their original picture book, Lovabye Dragon, which I fell in love with three years ago. It is rare for me to declare a sequel every bit as good as the original; it is even rarer for me to deem a sequel better than the original. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you that this companion book is every bit as enchanting as the first—and possibly even a smidgen better.
With the same sing-songy narration as Lovabye Dragon—not quite prose and not quite poetry, sometimes playful and sometimes solemn, a princess story without being a princess story—Evermore Dragon presents “a very little girl” and “a very biggle dragon,” two best friends who originally discovered each other when Girl’s lonely tears led the equally lonely Dragon straight to her castle doors. In Evermore Dragon, the friendship is now in full swing. At the wake of derry-day/ the friends decided what to play. Yup, you guessed it: hide and seek.
It’s a bit of a lost cause for a dragon to conceal wings, tail, long spiky neck, and great big bulging eyes amidst your typical park scenery. But our Girl has a touch of parental compassion about her and pretends not to notice “his Drag-enormo self” sticking out from behind the rock upon which she stands.
And she stood upon a rock
such a very little rock
and she sighed a little sigh
such a very little sigh. Oh, my.“Dragon’s so good at hiding,
I’m not sure I can find him.
What to do?”
When Dragon suddenly pops up behind her, Girl wraps her arms around his neck and assures him, Oh, Dragon, you’re so clever./ You’re the smartest dragon ever.
Now it’s Girl’s turn to hide, and she has Big Plans. She races through the forest and across the bog and over a tall bridge and climbs inside the hollow of a tree. And then she waits.
And then everything goes to pot.
Our hearts go out to the Dragon (been there, done that), who earnestly overturns every stone, peers beneath every ridge, searching and searching for his friend. Until at last, the panic welding up inside him, he bellows into the darkening sky, ARE YOU LOST?
Our hearts go out to Girl (And she was), who finally climbs out from her tree and wanders frantically through the pitch black forest, amidst “cricking and cracking,” “flipping and flapping,” “moaning and groaning.” (Are there monsters in the night?)
Oh, she tried not to cry!
But she cried silver tears
worry worry tears
and her heart thumped a sound
a trem-below sound
that only Dragon friends,
very very special friends, can hear.
It is a testament, not only to Joose’s meticulous word choice and lyrical delivery, but also to the range of emotion that Cecil captures in the bodies of girl and beast, that my Emily clutches my arm and buries her head in my armpit every time we get to this part.
“Girl!” thundered Dragon.
“I hear you!” thundered Dragon.
The worry, the anticipation, the relief finally at this cry for help being heard: it feels utterly palpable to us parents and children. Only once Dragon swoops down from the sky and “wraps his wings around her/ so everly around her,” can we breathe again.
“I am here,” rumbled Dragon.
“You’re a dear,” whispered Girl.Dragon held her and he sang,
“Evermore, evermore, I am here.”
There’s a time for hiding. There’s a time for seeking. There might even be a time for growing out of hiding and seeking. I know that all too soon the day will come when Emily doesn’t want to play with me anymore. But I’d like to ask whomever she chooses as her playmates in this game of Life: will you hear the cry she makes when she has strayed a little too far off course? Will you care enough to help her find her way back? Will you take her in your arms and hold her close?
Because we’re never too old to want to be found.
—
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Review copy provided by Candlewick. All opinions are my own. Amazon.com affiliate links are provided mainly for ease and reference–although I prefer that we all shop local when we can!
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Tagged: Barbara Joosse, castles, children's stories about fear, dragons, friendship in children's stories, game of hide and seek in children's books, getting lost as a theme in children's books, girl main character, picture book, princess, Randy Cecil, scared of the dark, separation anxiety
What to Read to Your Kids 
But I don’t WANT Little Bird to grow up! 🙂 I just realized after reading this post that your blog is like the best baby book on Earth–how fun will it be for your kids to have these to read when they are adults?!
Either that or they will die from mortification. 🙂
I was just thinking that as well, S. Incredible documentation of all the little moments!
Thanks for this one, so sweet and true!
Thanks, Babar!
Lovabye Dragon was a bigger hit with Dad than with Daughter but we both enjoyed it enough that I look forward to seeing how this one plays out. Thanks!
Love every bit of this. Xo