Toads-in-the-Hole

Last night Adelaide and I were reading a picture book about the Nativity. It was also a Counting Book, the kind of thing where a simple story is told and, for some reason, things happen from one to ten. In this case, the narrators are contemporary farm animals remembering the events of the Nativity as their ancestor cows, donkeys, doves, etc. experienced them. First ONE cow mentions the stable, then TWO donkeys talk about Mary's mode of transport, then THREE doves talk about... atmospheric conditions or something. It's a nice little book with clean 1970sesque illustrations that we inherited from the Wurzberger's collection of Golden Books.

After we finished the book, Adelaide pointed at Joseph and asked, "How come Joseph doesn't talk?" The picture she was pointing at was a typical portrait of Joseph: bearded, thick brown hair, an expression somewhere between smiling and frowning, standing a little bit back and giving baby Jesus a speculative eye.

"I'm not sure," I replied, "but you're right, in most of these stories Joseph doesn't say much. Maybe he's a little scared or suprised."

"Maybe he's just shy," Adelaide offered. Adelaide is often just a little shy with new people. I agreed that Joseph might have been a shy person. "He's shy like Bigfoot!" Adelaide elaborated.

"Okay," I said hesitantly, "so Bigfoot is sort of like Joseph."

"No," Adelaide corrected, pointing at the picture, "Jospeh is like Bigfoot."