Digby Takes Charge (Going With the Narrative Flow)

The mornings the bambini aren't eating yogurt find them eating Cheerios.  Not so long ago, their Cheerios box contained a book, a slender volume entitled Digby Takes Charge.  It is written and illustrated by Caroline Jane Church, with whom those familiar with children's literature will be familiar, and maybe even with Digby Goes Down.  Digby is a sheepdog, who is stymied by six stubborn sheep who will not be herded anywhere--unless they are asked nicely.  Many a morning, while she was curling her hair in the bathroom, Julie heard Ted reading Digby over three bowls of Cheerios.  Yesterday, Clara selected it before bed.  Julie read the title and then flipped to the first page.  Only Clara informed her it wasn't the first page and insisted she'd missed a critical page: the page that reads, "This book belongs to: ; Compliments of Cheerios; Spoonfuls of stories."  This sort of exacting request is not unlike the insistence upon the reading of every thought bubble, every sign, every label, every word on every page whether it is part of the narrative flow or not.  (The other day, Joe insisted that Julie read a thought bubble on the book jacket flap.  Like one that hinted at the actual story.  The one the book jacket flap is meant to entice one to want to read.)

Note that we're not even in the narrative flow here with this this-book-belongs-to page, Fans.  It's probably only a matter of time before we're being asked to read the copyright page.  (Digby was published in 2007, by the way.)