the homemade story ...

"Tell Me A Story, Mummy" written by Carl Norac and beautifully illustrated by Mei Matsuoka. This is Big Z's current favourite bedtime read. The main character though, the Mummy's child here is a girl. So, for obvious reasons, when I read the book to him, I replace the said-character to Big Z's name and change the character's friend, to Big Z's pick-of-the-night friend. He gives me the name, I'll just insert it in the story.

After reading this book, he'll ask for the other current favourite. This other one has no book though. It really can't be found anywhere in print for that matter. It's a purely made-up one by yours truly. It's called "The Cereal, The Pasta & The Biscuit". *LOL* This story has many different episodes and takes on it. ;-)

It all started with Big Z not satisfied after reading some 3 or more books to him one night. With the lights off, he insisted I tell him another story. For short of idea and mind you, I was extremely tired by then, I came up with this spur-of-the-moment take on a bedtime story. (no guesses what's on my mind most nights - naming characters after food .. haha!) Most nights, it gets pretty ridiculous a storyline, but I always try my best to include some good moral behind the created story. The most common one is how in life, no two characters or people are the same, yet they can still live together (in the case of the cereal, pasta and biscuit - they all live harmoniously in the kitchen cupboard) and be friends with one another. I've also gone down the also-very-true route that not everyone can get along well with each other, but you'll always need to be nice to people regardless of their differences. Be nice to others, and they'll be nice to you. Or so I'd like to believe and have been brought up to have such a mindset. And what better way to introduce this than through such important characters as the cereal, the pasta and the biscuit, ey? ;-)

After a round of the story (each night is a different storyline, and I really don't know what I've gotten myself into now ... eeek!!), Big Z gives me one of his made-up stories too. A fair trade, I suppose. Haha. And only after that, will he finally agree to go to sleep. Tiring? You don't say!

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I was scribbling about in my notebook (as I normally do) one fine day when I came up with some lines. Read them and it sounded like a good (for my kids at the very least) enough piece of short story. This was some months back. Today, I finally had them printed out. I attached a piece of Big Z's earlier paintings to each of the story's 'page'. My next step is to get these framed up and then have them displayed in Big Z's room. It's another made-up story, another homemade story, if you like. Instead of binding the pages together into a mini book, I thought I'd have them framed up and thus will double up as some unconventional artwork in his room. More home-projects on my end then.

Below, the 4 'pages' to the story. I'm calling this one, "The Bedtime Routine".

:: page 1 ::

:: page 2 ::

:: page 3 ::

:: page 4 ::