That is NOT a Good Idea

My son has a new favorite book, it seems.

How can I tell, you ask?

Because although we have had it for roughly six months or so and read it on occasion, the little guy now can not walk away from his book shelf or room without grabbing Mo Willems’ “That is Not a Good Idea” off the shelf and with boundless energy, thrusting it into my hands, pointing at it furiously and making noises that tell me without a doubt, “read this to me now, dad!”

The long and short of it is that what seems like a pretty naive Goose accepts a walk and dinner invitation by a chimney-hatted fox and, as you can guess, what happens along the way is not a good idea. It’s told in a style reminiscent of old silent films, which hits all the right chords with this old film buff. We picked up the book the night I did a Mo Willems storytime at our Barnes and Noble last Spring and it had only come out occasionally, amid some other Willems books like Pigeon or Elephant and Piggie, and a host of other books on the shelf.

As of late, though we’ve read “That is Not a Good Idea” roughly 3-4 times on any given day. Whether it’s bedtime (which he sometimes wants a repeat reading), midday, pre-naptime or when he wakes up, we have gotten to know The Fox, The Goose, and that silent-film style world very well as of late.

Not that I mind. I love the book too. And at this point, I think I’ve got all our voices down, and have started doing a little bit at the beginning for the title page, where I tell him to ‘start the movie projector’ and we both crank our hands as if starting an old film, accompanied by some noises for the old piano-style intro music.

It’s fun, it’s a breeze to read, it’s incredibly entertaining both in writing and illustrations, so it’s a blast for both of us to read. It’s just fun to see where his tastes go and when, as this adventure continues.