The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown

This book looked important, so I plucked it off the library shelf. It's a picture book for children, written back in the 40s, published with illustrations (probably) in the 70s.

The premise is that for all the things you can say about an object--out of all the descriptions you can use--one is more important than the rest.

From a spoon to a daisy, snow to wind, Wise poetically tells you what makes things what they are and what the most important attribute of the object is. I don't always agree with her. The important thing about grass, in my opinion, is NOT that it is green. (Maybe I just feel that way because I come from a place where grass is often gold.) But I get what she's doing.

Wise's book starts children thinking about what the important things are. And she sets it up so that, at the end, when she says that the important thing about you is that you are you, you are more likely to buy into that logic. She's fostering a sense of self in young children.

Not a groundbreaking book, by any means. I don't even think it's that "important." But it was cute.

~6/10~