My Girl Molly

Some children's books are deep. They have brilliant illustrations, moral lessons and they provide pure enjoyment every time you open em.

MOLLY GOES SHOPPING by Eva Eriksson is one of these delights.

It's the story of a little pig girl who "has gotten so smart lately." Her grandma sends her to the store to buy a bag of beans. Molly forgets what she was supposed to buy, so she insists the clerk gave her the wrong thing---a sack of potatoes. Her grandma goes back to the store, talks to the clerk and finds out Molly lied. Grandma tries to help the little pig understand why she lied.

"Why did you lie to me?"

Molly can't answer that.

Did you forget what you were supposed to buy?"

"Sort of."

"That can happen to anyone."

"But you must not lie anymore," says Grandma.

No, Molly will never do that again.

Molly gets a chance to redeem herself when her Grandma (who is not a pig by the way but maybe a cross between a seal and a bear) sends her back to the bakery to buy them each a Danish pastry for tea. On the way to the bakery, Molly loses her coin purse (don't ya love coin purses). Before she and grandma find it on the street, Molly has a few outbursts. Next, she goes to the bakery and forgets what she's supposed to get. But this time she doesn't lie and everyone's happy with the treat she brought home even though it's not a Danish, but a Cream Puff.

Oh! This book is rich. I had to special order it from Amazon and I waited a long time till it got here. Originally, I discovered it at our local library.

I don't know how Kenz and I started the habit of acting out the stories we read, but when she was in her 'threes,' we played "Molly" many many times. And I never got tired of it. Neither did she. She always surprised me when she would add a detail to our drama, something I had not noticed in the pictures. An example of this is when Molly came back from the grocery store with the sack of potatoes and not the sack of beans. Kenzie would be, like the picture, holding the coin purse with her mouth. She would also crawl under the table like Molly does when she hides from Grandma after she comes back from talking to the clerk. The topper was that she would find something to put on her head because Molly had a basket on hers!

Can you hear how nuts I am about this book? We had so much fun with it!

It was published in Sweden. Printed in Italy. First American Edition, 2003

Raben & Sjoogren Bokforlag, Stockholm