Playing with Dad

Dads just play differently, don’t they?

Mitchell’s License
by Hallie Durand
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 978 07636 4496 3
Audience: 3 – 5 years

I, for example, would never think to throw a kid on my shoulders and drive him to bed, yanking my ears for steering, crashing into walls, and the whole raucous nine yards. Dads are the rough-housers in most houses, more willingly wild, and the dad in this book is no exception.

Mitchell, evidently a car enthusiast, takes a wild and circuitous route to bed perched atop his dad, who had given him a drivers license to get around the problem of chasing him around every night at bedtime. This becomes a routine, with new twists each night, which his dad mostly takes in good stride, even when he chokes a bit on his oil change (via sippy cup) and has his nose smashed to honk the horn. (ouch!) The “car” finally balks at refueling by feeding cookies to the driver, and takes control. A deal is struck, though, that Mitchell can drive again as long as he stays on the road.

This is an amusing nighttime routine, and one that some dads might just be talked into by inspired children. Tony Fucile’s cartoonish illustrations at once add the kind of human expression that give this a sweet side and have a wild, kinetic way about them that makes the cartoony violence of yanked hair and “car” crashes funny, rather than wince-worthy.

To all the dads out there – thanks for all the fun rides you give your kids!