The First Chapter of My New Book!

I have written a series of books for parents to read out loud to their children. I wrote them for my kids, because there are so few books I like for young children. Most of children's literature is magical or anthropomorphic. The few books that aren't are "trashy," not like real life all. They are like fast paced cartoon movies rather than documentaries.

This series of books does not fit neatly into any genre. They are part "slice of life" books for children. I welcome your kids to Anders's house for a little while. They are also part anthropological. I make some pretty non mainstream choices sometimes, and I make an effort to explain why.

Though Anders loves these books, I am not sure they are quite entertaining enough for other people's children. I am publishing the first chapter here. I would love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to email me at roslynross@gmail.com or to comment on this post. If you have a child between the ages of 3 and 7 who has not been overly exposed to the cartoon movies and magical books, I would love to email you many chapters and get your feedback, so please let me know if you are interested in that.

The title of the book is City Family Farm Family. Here is the first chapter:

1.     Building

 

 

There was a family with a mama, a papa, and a little boy just under two-years-old named Anders. They were an adventurous family, but they had a big problem: they could not decide where to live.

 Mama and Papa wanted to live in a giant city. They loved the idea of Anders growing up in a giant city, because children who grew up in giant cities were often savvy, street-smart, and competitive.

But Mama and Papa also wanted to live on a farm. They loved the idea of Anders growing up on a farm, because children who grew up on farms were often tough, healthy, and grounded.

Mama and Papa wanted to live in two places, and they wanted Anders to grow up in two places, so, they decided to do an experiment to see what it was like living in two places.

 

The giant city in which they decided to live was Los Angeles, California. Four million people live in Los Angeles, but unlike other giant cities like New York and London, filled with apartment buildings and skyscrapers, Los Angeles was more like one big sprawling suburb.

Mama and Papa bought a medium-sized house on Archwood Street in an area of Los Angeles called Tarzana. Their new house had a big backyard with ten fruit trees, two giant shade trees, a pool in which Anders could swim, room for Anders to ride his balance bike, and dirt in which Anders could dig. 

 

Moving into the new house was a lot of work. First, Mama and Anders unpacked all of the boxes. There were a lot. It took them almost a week just to take everything out of the boxes and arrange and rearrange the rooms, cupboards, and drawers to make their new home as organized as possible.

When that was done, Mama and Anders needed to go to many different furniture and home-decorating stores. Today they were going to one of Anders’s favorite stores––Ikea.

Ikea was a huge store housed in a giant monstrosity of a building that took up as much space as an entire a city block several acres in size. The building had almost no windows and was low to the ground for its size. The entire rectangular shape was painted in royal blue. Huge bright yellow letters spelled out its name. The style made Mama think of Legos. From the outside, the store looked like a giant Lego block. 

 When they walked inside the store a Swedish man, whose job it was to greet them, said, “Hi, welcome to Ikea.”

“Thank you,” said Mama.

“Thank you,” said Anders.

“Do you want to take the stairs or the escalator today?” Mama asked. Anders chose the stairs, and up they went.

At the top of the stairs there was a cement path with large, yellow arrows showing visitors the way to go. The path was lined with rooms. First there were dozens of living rooms, then, farther down the path, there were dozens of bedrooms, then offices, kitchens, dining rooms, and bathrooms. Then there were entire apartments that visitors could enter and explore. It was like a series of adult-sized doll houses, all impeccably stylish.

Mama and Anders walked slowly down the path, marveling at all the things to see. Whenever Mama or Anders saw a room they liked, they left the path and explored that room for a while. It took almost two hours for them to walk the entire floor.

Eventually Mama found what she had come for––a tall, simple, white bookcase. She stared at it for a long time, envisioning how it would look in their new living room. Eventually she said, “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go get it!”

They took an elevator downstairs to the warehouse where customers went to get the furniture they had picked upstairs in the showrooms. Mama got a giant shopping cart. It was perfectly flat and low to the ground. Anders stood on it and practiced balancing while Mama pushed. Then he sat down, and Mama gave an extra hard push and let go of the cart! Anders squealed with delight. 

“Whee!” he said. “Again!” So, Mama did it again and again.

Soon they were at the boxes of bookcases. Anders climbed off the cart. Mama, grunting and struggling, loaded a heavy, flat box as tall as she was, filled with all the pieces to make a bookcase, onto the cart. Anders helped Mama push the cart to the checkout line. They paid, and then it was time to figure out how to get the box into Mama’s car. Again, Mama grunted and struggled, but she managed to get the box into the car.

Now it was time to go home, but Anders was not ready yet.

“Two more minutes,” he said. He was climbing all over the car, experiencing the new spaces created by the giant box. 

Mama smiled and sat down in the driver’s seat. She took a book out of her purse and said, “Okay, tell me when you’re ready.” Mama always had a book in her purse for waiting times.

In ten minutes or so, Anders said, “All done!” and climbed into his car seat. Mama put away her book, and strapped him in.

 

Soon Mama and Anders were home. Now it was Anders’s favorite part of the day––it was time to build! 

Mama and Anders opened the box and took out several large pieces of painted wood, one even bigger piece of carboard backing, some small nails, some wooden pegs, and two different types of screws. Anders inspected everything while Mama read the instructions. 

“We need a flat-head screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, and a hammer to do this project,” she said.

“Okay!” said Anders. He ran to his room. He brought back two toolboxes filled with a selection of tools. Then he searched through them for what they needed.

Mama pointed to the first step in the instructions. “We start with the wooden pegs.” She showed Anders the holes into which the wooden pegs must go. 

Anders grabbed his hammer. He had his very own metal hammer, the same kind of hammer a grownup might use. Anders had had a plastic hammer when he was a baby, but it had broken one day while he was hammering with it. Then Mama had gotten Anders a wooden child's hammer with which he practiced for quite some time, but eventually the head came off. Then Mama decided to get Anders a small, metal hammer. Anders had practiced hammering so much that he was able to use the metal hammer without hurting himself or the furniture. 

Anders, one by one, put the wooden pegs in place and then hammered them into the board. Then it was time for step two. Anders screwed in many screws, and Mama went over them to make sure they were tight enough. Soon it was time to put the bookcase together. Mama had to do that part. But when she was done, Anders hammered all the little nails into the carboard backing. Finally, Mama stood the shelf up. It looked great!

“Never climb on this, Anders,” she said, and showed him how easily it could fall over. “Ouch,” she said.

“Ooouuuuch!” Anders said, understanding.

Mama started putting books onto the bookshelf. Anders got upset. He wanted to take the bookcase apart and put it together again!

“Oh honey,” Mama said, “I wish I had time to do that with you, but I don’t today.”

Whenever Mama said “no” to Anders in one way, she tried to say “yes” in another way. Right now, Anders was feeling emotional, so Mama said “yes” in two ways. “We have to go to Ikea again soon to get a bed. That will be a big project! Do you want to go to Ikea again soon?”

“Yes,” Anders said nodding.

“And right now, I need to be done putting furniture together, because I have a huuuuge cooking project I need to get to. Do you want to help me with my cooking project?”

“Yes,” Anders said.

“Okay, let’s put these books on the bookshelf super-fast, so we can get to the kitchen!” Mama said, starting to pile books onto the bookshelf as fast as she could. Anders loved doing things super-fast, and he couldn’t wait to start the cooking project, so he got right to work putting books on the shelves he could reach.

 

Over the first six months that they lived in the Archwood Street house, Mama and Anders put together a king bedframe, a twin bedframe, two bedside tables, three desks, four bookcases, a dining room table, and six chairs. That is how Anders became such an expert with hammers and screwdrivers at such a young age that one day, while still a toddler, Mama woke up and found that Anders had removed two of the legs from the dining room table.