Lost Pages

One the great blessings of having a daughter is that I get to read lots of books with her, which I simply never read growing up in rural Zambia. As a lover of books, I am genuinely fascinated by children’s stories and what they are trying to communicate.  Take the story of Rapunzel. In the version of the story that we have at home, the young girl Rapunzel is locked up in a tall tower by some very evil woman. The only person Rapunzel sees is this evil woman, who regularly climbs up the tower using Rapunzel’s beautiful long golden hair as a ladder.   One day, a prince is passing by and sees the evil woman going through the routine of calling Rapunzel to let her hair down and climbing up. After she leaves, the handsome prince gives it a try and Rapunzel lets him into the castle. As we expect, the couple fall in love at first sight. At some point, the evil woman finds out the prince has been visiting. Incandescent with rage, she cuts Rapunzel’s hair and sends her away so...

In the children’s story Dom’s Dragon , the little boy Dom finds a small red egg. He decides to hide the egg under his bed. The next day, the egg hatches and out pops a little red dragon. She is a little bit hot and she glows, so Dom naturally names her Glow. He decides to hide Glow under his bed. That night we are told Dom has a nice and warm sleep thanks to the hot dragon glowing underneath his bed. As one would expect, Glow starts to grow bigger. So Dom tries to hide it from his mum. He takes Glow to the bathroom where she makes the water nice and hot. On that day we are told young Dom has a wonderful bath! Unfortunately, Glow just keeps on growing. So Dom moves the dragon somewhere in the kitchen. The next day all the food and plates are nice and warm. Young Dom and his little sister enjoy a wonderful warm meal.  Sadly for Dom, Glow just keeps on growing. She is now too big to hide around the house. So Dom is forced to come clean and tell his mum about Dom. The mother deci...