Alice, Belle and Jacob decided to play "baby delivery" the other night. This game consisted of one child crawling into a box and the other two children pushing the box through the living room to the couch where I was sitting.
Alice: Bing Bong!
Me: Who's at the door?
Alice: It's a package!
Me: Wow, I wonder what could be in this package?
Alice: It's a baby!
Me: Oh, my! Let's open it at once.
(Belle pops out.)
Me: Hello! Where did you come from?
Belle: From the baby hospital.
Me: Oh?
Belle: That place where the babies are born and their parents can't take care of them.
Me: Do you mean an orphanage?
Belle: Yeah, an orphanage!
Me: And you were sent to me in a box? I can't believe it! (We hug and kiss, and then the next child shouts "My Turn!")
In this pretend play, I think the kids were combining two story ideas: stories about orphanages in China and America, and a story about an African American slave who mailed himself in a box from the South to the North to freedom. That book is called "Henry's Freedom Box" and is by Ellen Levine, Scholastic Press.
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