This book, another by Jill Murphy of the Large family series (see also); its focus is more on the desperate multitasking goddesslike Organisational Efforts of Mrs Large to keep all her children satisfied and safe while keeping the House in Order - all before Mr Large gets back from work! I was fairly critical of the series as a whole last post but on reflection I think it's a great way of drip-feeding small children the ideas of respecting their parents' authoritative needs and commands as Elder Beings; that is what parenthood is for is it not and children learn the ropes from the bottom up!
And this series about elephants is likely a good one for building strong early-childhood reading foundations if you want them to not be whiny needy little trunk-nosed shits when they hit puberty.
This book by Jill Murphy was one among a series of elephant-family books I had as a kid* and to my surprise my parents retain. It's a pretty boring story, consisting of a family of elephants, whose dad is having a birthday for which the mum is planning [title]. The kid-elephants get variously antsy and annoy their mum while waiting for dad to get home from work, only to all fall asleep as soon as he arrives, and the parents end up having a quiet night in anyway. If any moral can be taken from the story it's that parent life is awful and kids are the fucking worst. I certainly sunk in exactly this from reading it as a juvenile. Whatever. Maybe worth a shot for the tiddlies?
* If you're wondering why I seem to be reading loads of children's books at the moment, I'll remind you that I've temporarily moved back in with my parents, who for a day or two a week babysit a toddler called Isaac, which was weird enough, but he's now old enough to form his own shortish sentences, and having become well accustomed to his being referred to as 'Little Isaac' while I am 'Big Isaac', the sheer power with which he can demand I read him stuff must have bolstered his ego of late - as recently he marched into the kitchen to declare "I'm big Isaac now!" which I can't really argue with.
