Adventures with Dad

Many a child, upon finding a seemingly abandoned object in places like the street, in a park or a schoolyard, has asserted a “legal claim” to that object by declaring, “Finders, keepers; losers, weepers.” In Adventures with Dad, when a father takes his children to a beach and they come upon a “discarded” stuffie horse, the children imagine the toy’s numerous play possibilities and mentally invoke ownership. However, when faced with information concerning the horse’s true ownership, the children are called upon to make a moral decision. The only portion of the book that may be challenging to the younger portion of its readership involves a time shift at the point at which the children find the horse and adopt a future perspective. Some youngsters may think that the tea party and dragon fighting are actually occurring at the beach in the present.

Norman’s text is delivered via a series of quatrains that employ an abcb rhyme scheme. Though Norman provides the framework, it is Katie Dwyer’s illustrations that fill in the story’s finer details. For example, because the narrator utilizes the first person plural, Dwyer visually provides siblings, a boy and a girl. Mom is never mentioned in the text, but an interior spread of the family’s house reveals a framed family photo on the wall, one containing a “mother”.

While not an essential purchase, Adventures with Dad may cause its young readers to reflect the next time they find themselves about to say, “Finders....”