Hommel Mangas
I finished writing a book Tuesday evening — actually the wee morning hours into Wednesday. Thanks for asking — I would have to place it under the genre of creative nonfiction.
In total transparency it’s a children’s personalized board book, but I hadn’t written the sequel to the first “A Book of John,” since it was presented for Christmas of 2022.
John’s mommy, my second-born daughter Dr. Chloe, noted that it’s his favorite book — but mid-year she noted it’s kind of a long read at bedtime being 30 pages. A tired mom’s version of reading her toddler “War and Peace.” I specifically recall trying to skip a few pages on children’s books that I’m sure I had already read over 698 times to my daughters at bedtime. When Chloe was a toddler, she insistently made me turn back to read the missed pages, probably to my quiet sigh.
Now I actually make my own grandson turn the page back if he accidentally skips a page with his little toddler fingers — it’s like I don’t know how the book ends if I don’t read each and every page.
One of my favorite books to read John when he brings it to me is the four internal board-style pages of “That’s Not My Truck” — a Usborne touchy-feely book. This makes perfect sense as his father Michael and grandfather Rick own Tillman’s Vehicle Accessories. Way back last summer, when John was a mere 16-months-old, I found out why he touched his face and uttered “mou” every time I inquired where the little white mouse was on the page — which was usually sitting atop a truck looking at hubcaps or checking out a truck radiator. He was pointing and sounding out the word “mouth” when I was reading “mouse.”
Soon after he was born, I bought a boxed set of scholastic BOB Books, the Sight Words Kindergarten and First Grade Collection — because I love them. It includes 20 books and introduces three new sight words in each book. To be honest, John and I mostly read the “Who” book with sight words “is,” “look” and “who” over and over. We’ve come to love Mat, Dot and Sam. And every time we knock “tap-tap” on a door, we throw our palms up to the sky, laugh and ask “Who is it?” It’s like we’re old souls reliving an old inside joke.
It’s the same laughter and joy that comes when John hands me the light blue children’s phone that lived in my parents’ playroom for over 50 years. He dials the phone, which dings the bell and I answer it saying, “Hello, is this the joke line? What did the Bee say to the Baby?” (One must always over-emphasize the “B” words” — because B-words are funny to a baby.) This is when John and I both lift our faces to the heavens and roar in laughter.
John’s mommy once suggested that maybe I should actually come up with a punch line — I figure I’ll come up with something when John stops laughing at our original joke. It’s been a year and 95% of the time when we occasionally call the joke line, he still thinks it’s hilarious.
But I digress. The book I authored was originally going to be a short personalized sight word board book. Photos of John entitled “What John Could Do Before He Turned Two.”
I envisioned easy-to-read pages with photos of John laughing, hiking, fishing, skiing, driving a toy tractor. And for a brief moment, I envisioned writing personalized rhymes to enhance his developing reading skills.
He does point to each word on the page and reads “eee,” “agh,” “ooh” when he’s reading “Who Is It?” (And yes, when I’m reading the book, he says: “Who is it?”)
Since John started potty training before he was one — there is one photo in the book that shows him seated on the potty chair, grinning widely, with a big comfy shirt on:
“On this potty, John can pee and poo,
before he was one and before he was two.”
It was after composing these two-lines of Pulitzer Prize-level original nonfiction verse when I knew I was no Dr. Suess, and also when I decided the rest of the book would contain only short sentences with sight words accompanying each photo. “John can walk up the hill.” “John can play hide and seek.” “John can type on the typewriter.”
Cheers of gratitude to the author and illustrator of BOB Books and a happy second birthday to the boy that calls me GJ — Granny Janny.
Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].
