Day 153: Not A Box

We have had a huge cardboard box set up in our living room for a good five months now.  Maybe even longer.  It came with my son's new car seat and has been the source of hours of entertainment for him and   little sister ever since. Our box, like the one in this great story, can be many things.  Usually, it is Mater's garage (my son loves to pretend to be Mater while racing around with one of his favorite trucks), but it has also been a dinosaur cave, house, hide-and-seek hiding place, and safari train, among other things.  If you've ever been the recipient of a giant box, you know how much fun it can be to a child.  And, if you've been brave enough to keep that box for the sake of play and let it take up living space in your house for far longer than your organization-yearning self would otherwise allow, you know how many awesome things that box can be!

If your child has ever loved playing with a box far more than its contents (and really, what child hasn't?), you've simply got to check out this book.  Dedicated "to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes", Not A Box is a delightful tribute to the simple joy of childhood creativity and imagination.  The sketches on each page show a rabbit in/on/playing with a box, with an accompanying question from a clueless inquisitor as to why he is doing that.  We all know it's not just a box, of course.   As the rabbit goes on to show us, it's a race car, a mountain, a building, a robot, a hot air balloon, a rocket ship... anything but a box.  I love the way the cover is made to feel and look like a cardboard box, too.  The whole story is so simple, yet so clever, and both of my kids just love it.  The simplicity of the text makes it great for emerging readers, and I know I'll be hearing my son reading this story to himself many times before it is due back at the library. Be sure to be on the lookout for the companion book, Not A Stick, too!  It was out of the library the last time we went, but I would imagine it is equally as fabulous.

Our beloved box has seen better days and probably won't last much longer, but I always love seeing what it is going to become next.  A box doesn't need to be big to be fun, of course.  Any size box has countless possibilities.  (We made my son's Halloween costume out of a cardboard box last year.)  What is your child's favorite "not-a-box"?