A Literary Valentine?

I think you know that I am afraid of and uninterested in animals.  We don’t need to go over this tedious fact again, except that this post has to do with a cat. A cat named Splat.  Splat the Cat.  You may have heard of him.  I ignored him for quite awhile because, well, he is a cat.  But an editor that I do some work for sent me an enormous box of children’s books a few months ago, and Splat was one of the characters waiting to introduce himself to me.  My girls picked his book up immediately, so we sat on the couch and read Splat Says Thank You! by Rob Scotton.

It’s some kind of sweet, you guys.   Splat has a buddy named Seymour, and Seymour is sick, so Splat makes a friendship book to make Seymour smile again.

On each page, Splat tells Seymour something about Seymour’s kindness that he’s thankful for.

I love this page with Splat telling Seymour a secret.  I asked the girls what they thought the secret might be, and Hadley said, “That Splat has a sister?”  I nodded and said, “That might be it.” And then I said a little thank you prayer that Hadley doesn’t know what “the secret” is.  Yet, anyway.

Also? Seymour is a mouse.  I love that a mouse and cat are friends even though, historically (stereotypically?), these critters do not get along. Perhaps that’s a lesson for me and my annoyance with things that are not human.

Ol’ Splat inspired me to make friendship cards for the girls to make for some of their friends. They’re very simple, just a few lines with a prompt to have Hadley and Harper say what they like about their friends, plus a spot for a picture.

(Do you like Hadley’s green nail polish?  This is from Girl Scouts.  She had to try each Girl Scout cookie, then paint her nails according to her favorite one.  She liked Thin Mints the best.)

Harper’s drawing a picture of she and a little girl at school.  The little girl is helping Harper put on a Cinderella dress.  Harper is thanking her for “zipping up the Cinderella dress because I couldn’t.” This is nice, but I worry that the conversation went something like this:

Little Girl: Do you want to play Cinderella, Harper?

Harper: OK. You be the step-sisters and I’ll be Cinderella.

Little Girl: Well, I wanted to be Cinderella.

Harper: No, I am Cinderella. I am Cinderella because she is blue and she is my favorite princess.  Here, help me zip this dress up.

Little Girl: OK.

This is Hadley in the pool with one of her buddies.  Hadley’s swimming with one of those noodles, but she looks like a descendant of Voldemort if you ask me.  And how about that hair?  She said, “I made it big because my hair is OUT OF CONTROL when it’s wet.”

We folded up our Friendship Cards and glued a stamp on them.

In case you’re looking for a fun (and friendly!) activity to do with your kids, here’s the worksheet to print out.  Get festive and print it out in red! Or pink! On second thought, have your kids decorate the page.  It takes longer and then you can watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, Downton Abby.

Friendship Cards

But get the book, too. I think you will love it. I think it will remind you of your friends.

Clearly, I underestimate the power of cats.