‘If I Could Keep You Little’

You can’t wait till you grow up.

The big kids get to do all the good stuff. They can stay up later and they get to go places you can’t go because you’re “too little”. They get to try things you’re not allowed to try and nobody treats them like babies.

Big Kids are so lucky, and you wish you were one of them.

Chances are, your Mama doesn’t, though. She wishes you could be a baby forever, but in the new book “If I Could Keep You Little” by Marianne Richmond, you’ll both see that, if that would happen, you’d miss out on a lot of things.

When you were a little baby, your mother loved to hold you and take care of you. There were so many times she thought you were growing up too fast, and she wished she could keep you bundled up and sing lullabies to you forever. But if she did that, she wouldn’t have a chance to hear you sing in your own voice.

When you were younger and you went anywhere, Mom held your hand and she wished it would stay little forever. But if that happened, she wouldn’t see you wave good-bye with a hand that was growing every day.

Even today, if you get owies, Mom puts bandages on them and kisses the owies to make you feel better. Your mom wishes she could make sure you never have owies any more, but if that happened, you wouldn’t learn from your mistakes or have any fun climbing or exploring the world around you.

Mother knows best, and she used to dress you in the finest, best of fashions. Sometimes, she wishes she had reason to buy cute little suits and fancy little dresses again, but if that happened, she would miss a chance to see your creativity when you dress yourself every morning. And if you didn’t have your creativity, she’d miss your stories and your artwork, too.

Without a doubt, Mom wishes she could stop time and freeze you forever. But as you can see, you’d both miss out on an awful lot of good things to come!

Does it make you cry when you think about how your baby is growing up? Then here’s an extra chance to hold some time in your hands: grab the little one, grab a warm blanket, snuggle in, and enjoy “If I Could Keep You Little”.

With a cute rhyme and scribbly watercolor drawings, author and illustrator Marianne Richmond tells the story of growing up, and the wonderful discoveries that come from becoming a big kid and from watching that process unfold. I liked this book because it speaks not only to every mother who longs to stop time, but to kids everywhere who can’t wait to speed it up.

If your 2-to-5-year-old loves a good read-aloud story – and if you don’t mind getting a little teary-eyed while paging through it – this is a book to find. “If I Could Keep You Little” is a big delight.

• The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. She has been reading since she was 3 and never goes anywhere without a book.