June 12, 2006 - Monday
I read "The True Story of Stellina," a book we recently borrowed from the library, to the boys this evening, both together since their mother is away this week. It's a charming little children's story about a bird that was found by the author's "future wife" on a street corner in New York City. The assumption is that it had fallen out of a nest, but since it would have almost certainly died if left along, the chick was brought into the author's wife's apartment and kept as a pet for its entire life. The story talks about how she learned to feed the chick, the teach it to fly, and how the bird, named Stellina, used to perch herself on top of a big eraser on a writing pencil. But mostly the story is about how Stellina and the author's and ultimately the author form a mutual affection for each other, how the Stellina cheep-cheeps when the author's wife arrived and how Stellina followed her around the house, and how they enrich each other's lives.

The story is told in the past tense and ends with a casual reference to when Stellina died. It is written without sadness, although by the end of the story the bond between Stellina and her people has been well established, even in the 30-odd pages of a children's book, and it's an unmistakably touching moment.
"Did Stellina die?" Harry asked a bit taken aback a moment later as the story overtly failed to explicate Stellina's death.
"Yes, she did, but this story is about something that happened a long time ago and the writer is remaining about how happy he was to have Stellina while she was alive."
"They should have not brought her home," he said in a somewhat startled voice.
"While I don't know, Harry, Stellina would have died if they didn't bring her home. Sure, she died after living a long life and this is really a happy book about how nice it was to have Stellina as a pet, don't you think? I mean you have Spooky and you enjoy her. But one day she will die, too. And you'll be very sad about that, but that doesn't mean that you'd have been better never to have had Spooky. Even though you'll be sad, you'll still think about how nice it was to have Spooky and how she was your pet."

Neither Harry and nor Jeremy sad much more. It was a good book.


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