Sicky balicky

I've been reading this gorgeous book to the children every night, bedtime, smelling good post shower, warm beds with hot-water-bottles. And the children settle quickly. They ruckle the sheets, rumple the pillows and wriggle to find comfort, but as soon as I start to read they freeze, breath held, waiting for the adventures of Minli to unfold. Minli is on her way to the man in the moon to ask him a question; only now it is revealed as two questions.

How can Dragon fly, and how can Minli change her families fortune? 

The story is simple, stories within stories about dragons, and gold fish and Magistrate tigers; but the children listen like the words will tell them secrets, like the text is weaving a spell, where they two will meet the man on the moon. And I can see that they lust for adventure, can taste it, hope for it until it aches. And I will give it to them, I will open the door like this book to adventure. For modern children can not venture totally alone, and why should they; child characters who adventure always have a companion on their travels, to ask why, or to find where. Next week I will drop the children at the end of the street from school instead of the gate - just the beginning...