I don’t know about you, but I keep a shelf of my childhood favorite books amongst the rest of my books. Re-Readathon had a prompt for re-reading a childhood favorite, so I knew I had some on hand, but I forgot that I didn’t have a copy of Strega Nona until I went looking for it. So, once staring at the shelf I grabbed my copy of A Wish for Wings that Work: An Opus Christmas Story by Berkeley Breathed and also The Last Basselope and Goodnight Opus while I was there.
I love Opus the penguin. I do not remember a time when I did not love Opus. In fact, as a small child, I spent my own precious dollars at the Scholastic Book Fair to pick up each of these books and have been carting them around (careful of their condition) for the last 30+ years. Knowing that they are living on the shelf alone is a comfort but reading them again (for maybe the first time in over 20 years) was an even greater comfort. A win for the entire concept of the Re-Readathon, really.
Opus, for those not familiar, is a character featured in Berkeley Breathed’s comic strips and children’s books. He is a penguin from the Falkland Islands who was separated from his mother at a young age and has a bit of neurosis about him. The first book, A Wish for Wings that Work: An Opus Christmas Story, is in some ways a Rudolph the Reindeer retelling. In the story Opus is jealous of birds who fly, but being a bird who swims turns out to be what is really needed. What I love about the difference between the two stories is that in A Wish for Wings that Work that Opus gets to be celebrated properly by others and is treated to a bit of flying. The moral of the story remains to embrace your own unique gifts and strengths rather than wishing to be something you are not. Also, the art is beautiful.
The second book featuring Opus, The Last Basselope: One Ferocious Story, has the characters from the Bloom County strip adventuring into the woods to capture the dreaded basselope. They find the last one, but really this is a story about discovering what it means to invented boogeymen and protect others. And also that sometimes we jsut have allergies and aren’t trying to scare you. The art in this one is the big draw for me, each drawing is richly layered and detailed and full of visual humor to go along with the words.
The final book is Goodnight Opus and is a riff on Goodnight Moon. In this one, Opus decides that routine is boring and should definitely be left behind and decides to go for a nighttime adventure (a theme develops). Normally Grandma reads Opus his favorite bedtime story, but tonight Opus decides to finish the story his way with some new pals. The point here is imagination – what can you think of that’s beyond what the story tells you? And really… all of us should be thinking that way.
Bingo Space: You. My favorite children’s Christmas book.
Next review should finally be a bingo!
