Tin Tin or Bust!

 

"I want to read Tin Tin!  I want to read Tin Tin!"  The voice of my youngest daughter was insistent in her demands for fairness.

Surprising as it might seem, her issue had nothing to do with banned books in Florida or even with her parent's restrictions on reading material.

The issue as it appeared had everything to do with the fact that her four older siblings were looking at Tin Tin "books" while she had none at hand.  I had gotten a used set of these comics by Herge for our children to look at.  I thought they seemed a little advanced for a three-year-old young lady who, at this moment, prefers Richard Scarry to nearly any other author.

"Here you go," I told Elise, handing her a copy of Tin Tin and the Cigar of the Pharaohs.  

She took it and looked curiously at the cover, then opened the book and flipped idly through it.  I could tell that she was anything but excited by the book, despite her apparent excitement a few seconds earlier to gain a copy.  

Maybe it was the wrong one.  "Do you want to look at this one?"  I asked her, offering a copy of The Secret of the Unicorn.

"OK," she said and exchanged the books.  Quite quickly she put down the book to engage in other more interesting activities, like poking her sister.

I wasn't surprised.  Tin Tin is a bit advanced for a three year old -- even one as precocious as Elise is.  Of course, what had triggered her interest was not a New York Times book review or even word of mouth from other three-year-olds she hangs out with.  No, the only thing that made her want to read one was the fact that all of her siblings were reading these books

Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."

Over and over again in the book of Proverbs, Solomon lets the reader know that they will be influenced by the people they spend time with.  If those people are wise and good, then they will tend to follow that path, while if they are prone to foolish and impulsive acts, then that is the direction they will tend towards.

So it is that we must choose our companions wisely, for they will impact the course our lives will take.  They might even encourage us to read the comics of a Belgian author from the 1930s.