pre-story pictures, this dad doing all this work with the kids. Like raking leaves, where the kids are "helping" him. Him doing all the work with a kid on his back, a kid on his foot, and other kids throwing leaves at him almost as fast as he is putting them in the wheelbarrow - stuff like that, where he is doing extra work being "helped" (these pictures remind me of the book "Aunt nina and her nieces and nephews")
so they all lay out blankets and stuff Japanese style (you spread out your bed on the floor to go to bed) and all snuggle together and the kids all have these books waving around
Read! (read! read! read! read! read!)
So the daddy starts on one book - once upon a time
and he drifts off to sleep
then he is startled awake by
READ!! Read! REad!Read!read!Read!
this happens several times.
so the kids have big piles of books waiting to be read, all jumping around excited to be read to. (all very small kids who can't read yet.)
So finally they give up and can't wake the daddy up anymore, so they go and grab the mommy.
She comes in to read books with them, with bread dough or flour still on her apron - obviously snatched mid-act in trying to get the bread ready to rise overnight for the next days food.
It starts over again
read! read! read! read! read!read!
she, in her turn starts to fall asleep
read!read!read!read!read!read!read!
finally they can no longer wake her to squeeze one more word out of her, so they leave her sleeping next to the dad (who has been asleep in the bed this whole time) and go and get the grandma.
She has something on her because she was seeding something (taking the seeds out of something) I haven't thought of what yet, so it may change the story, but it would be fun to do something messy like a pumpkin or something, or maybe a sunflower, haven't figured it out yet., but she obviously was taken mid-action without even a chance to wipe her hands.
read!read!read!read!read!read!read!
so she in turn reads untill she can no longer be woken up.
so then they go and find the grandpa - leaving 3 adults sleeping.
he shows up, obviously taken mid-action while weeding the garden (dirt clods - streaked overalls)
read! read!read!read!read!read!read!read!
so he reads untill he succombs to sleep and can no longer be roused by their pleas
The old great grandma has been sitting in a corner of the room the big bed on the floor is in (with now 4 peacefully sleeping adults in it) feeding a baby goat, and laughing cackleing with only some of her teath left (did you have old grandmas in Brazil that you just loved, that were half blind, deaf, and full of humour, even though they probably hadn't stood up for years?)
She becons to them, and they come over by her "read?", she shakes her head, but then proceeds to tell them wonderfull and amazing stories, until they all, her as well, fall asleep.
In the middle of the night, the kids wake up, one by one, and go crawling (not literally, but that idea) all over the house. The adults are all still asleep. The baby goat follows them, constantly nudging them. They see bread dough hanging over the edge of the table, and they kneed the dough and get it ready to bake.
kneed
They see the whatever (pumpkins?) on the table, and pull out all the seeds
seed
they see the door open into the garden, and pull weeds by the moonlight.
weed
then they finally realize what the baby goat wants, and get him milk from a big can wrapped up so as to not go bad (or kept in water or something)
feed
As they are all just comfortable in the grandma's bed with the baby goat again,
it starts to become light, and the adults wake up.
they are surrounded by hyper jumping children.
read!
read!
read!
read!
read!
read!
read!
So they start to read and the kids all fall asleep.
they smile.
read.
(the ending was inspired by Robert Munsch's books.)
(I want to do something more with the grandma, but can't think of what.)
