This is the book I used to read as a kid. When I saw it in a bookstore in France, it made me feel sort of at home. So we got it among the other books. For whatever reason my son favored it and has been asking me to read it to him during our breakfasts. And I read it to him. In my broken French.

I like how my son lives through the book. He explains me how the elephant’s nose hurt when the crocodile bit him. And he touches his own nose, and then my nose, to make sure it does not hurt. Nope, it does not.

And we read it in French and I laugh at my own reading performance (hey, I am getting better). And I remember how I used to read exactly the same book as a child, when I was about 5 or 6. I read it in Russian though.

Miro liked the book so much that he asked me to go to a toy store on the corner and get him a small elephant. And we got it. Another companion for our breakfasts.

Almost every morning Miro brings the book and the elephant to the kitchen and tells me “Mom, read me about the elephant”. And I do.

Barcelona, March 7th 2013