Changing the world, one bedtime story at a time.
I built a printed-and-bound edition of the Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story Anastasia in the light and shadow. That much is for me: It’s my favorite of the Willie stories, and it’s the one I want most to share with the children growing up around me. I’m publishing the story as a very tiny bedtime storybook in order to have it available to me to give as a gift.
And that joke is on me – twice. I usually buy Bruce Degan’s Jamberry for firstborn babies, because the poetry is so wonderful even when it hits tiny ears only as rhythmic sounds. And I myself have never been a bedtime-story reader. I sing children to sleep, illuminated only by night-lights.
But Anastasia is a bedtime-story even so, and I love it that it is read that way. It’s a good early reader, too, especially for children who have had it read to them many times, so the printed book is easy for small eyes to latch onto. You can buy it if you like, and no one here will weep, but that’s not the objective. You can get the story free from the link above, and I’m happy to share it in a bedtime storybook-ready PDF version.
You can call this a vanity on my part, and that’s fine. Of all the things I’ve written in my life, this is the one that stands the best chance of making an enduring difference in real lives. I’m delighted that I have it to share with children I love, and I would be thrilled if you were to share it with the same love for everything human beings can be.
There are half-a-billion children growing into their humanity right now. If you could show them what it means to be human, what would you do? Anastasia in the light and shadow is my answer. If you could get it into the hands – and minds – of some fraction of that vast legion of kids, you would be doing everyone a favor.
