Several months ago, when we visited our grandsons way up north, Beautiful Blue Eyes, then not quite two years old, had a book that he and I really enjoyed reading together. At his mother's suggestion we had bought a dump truck for his birthday. So, it was out to search for that dump truck book so I could read it to him when we visited.
Each morning and sometimes many times during the day, he and I would read some of his favorite books and one of those books included one that his Grammy had sent home with him the last time he had visited her. It was called The Happy Man and His Dump Truck. Credit for writing the book is simply "Miryam. Illustrated by Tibor Gergely. (Of course, I didn't know all that at the time I was at his house, and couldn't even remember the name of the book except it was The Happy Farmer or something like that. OK, I was a little off, but it had a farm connected to it.) So I had to google it when I decided I had to have a copy for my house for Beautiful Blue Eyes and The Little Princess when they come to visit. It was a story about a man who owned a dump truck. Each time he saw a friend he would wave his hand and tip the dumper on his dump truck. One day he gave a pig, a ride in his dump truck and as usual he would wave and dump the dumper any time he would see one of his friends. He forgot the little pig was inside. But the little pig thought this was so much fun. They passed a farm and gave each little animal they met a ride in the dumper and each time he met a friend he would dump, causing so much fun for each of the other little animals in the dumper. When they had finished their long ride he took them back to the farm and dumped them all. Which, of course, thrilled each of them because they loved their new sliding board. They each thanked him and off he drove, tipping the dumper in response to all their thanks.
Anyway, I finally located the book at a book store near me, I found it to be nothing more than a Little Golden Book. We, who have children, are all too familiar with the Little Golden Books. Even though they were obviously around when I was a kid I wasn't lucky enough to own any of my own, but my kids had plenty of them as youngsters.
I inquired about the price of the little book and could hardly believe how much prices have changed since my kids were little ones. I can remember getting some of those Little Golden Books on special for no more than .25 to .50 each. (These were among the items our little obsessive-compulsive daughter at the ripe old age of 3, 4, or 5, and I won't promise you it wasn't even younger, was so infamously known for straightening, grouping and organizing in the local discount stores. Not to drop names here, but that little girl's now known as "Mommy" to The Little Princess! You will notice I referred to her as "ours" and not "mine" in this instance. Her father deserves to get credit for some of her good traits!)...insert "snicker, snicker here. The current going price is...hold onto your wallets, now...$2.99.
I still had to have it because Beautiful Blue Eyes and I had so much fun with that little book and his dump truck. He would go into hysterics each time I would get to the part where the man would dump his truck, we would tilt the
dumper to his dump truck over and watch all of the animals (his blocks, toy trucks and anything else our imagination would label as animals) slide to the bottom of the dumper and out of the truck.
He's in town and coming over to visit us this week end and next week, so I was really excited to get that little book. And I think The Little Princess will enjoy the book as well. Maybe she's a little young or it now, but in time I'm sure she'll love it.
It's just a silly little book, but colorful and written in such a manner that apparently children have been enjoying the story for many years. This was my first experience with it (Its possible my son may even had a copy, and I've just forgotten it!) It was first copyrighted 1950 and renewed in 1978.
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