Paper Coins

When N was born, we put her in her yellow duck pyjamas and brought her home from the hospital, wondering what would become of us now that we had been released into the larger world as a proper family unit. The hospital gave us a kind of toolkit: diapers and how-to pamphlets and who-to-call lists and a grow chart to put on the wall, which reminded us that one day she would actually stand upright. Shocking to think. I had gone through all those months of pregnancy only to discover that birth wasn’t the finish of something, it was the start.

In the toolkit there was also a small, simple book by renowned children’s author Rosemary Wells, called Read to Your Bunny and billed as “an invitation to the world of reading.” In the afterword, Wells tells parents, “Reading to your little one is just like putting gold coins in the bank. It will pay you back tenfold.”

Now that N is six, the story has already come full circle, as she reads to us in English and French each night. The other day her homework assignment was to list things we do in our house toujours, quelquefois, and jamais, and lit les livres took the always spot, while fumer des cigarettes got never. So the day closed feeling we were doing some things right. This little movie, shot by my husband in Toronto’s High Park and narrated by N, is our tribute to the book that got us started.