A few days ago I had a friend visiting who told me a story about one of my books. During the holidays this past year she visited a family whose kids have a mountain of toys. She was warned not to give them anything, that they had more than enough. But of course you can't show up empty handed, so she brought along a copy of What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? and gave it to their little girl, who then disappeared into her room.
Later on in the evening she was found dragging a big box of toys down the stairs. "What are you doing?" asked her mom. "The book said if you have too many toys you should give them away." And in fact it does. The last activity in the book begins with a poem about this fellow, who has too many toys:
What can you do with too many toys? You can pile them up and give them away to people who need them:
Her story made my day. With Earth Day coming up next week I thought it was worth sharing. Now I'm off to pile up all the baby stuff we no longer need and make a trip to good will.
