One of my sister’s and my favorite books is Mr. Widdle and the Sea Breeze about a man who creates an island village named Widdleville. Mr. Widdle keeps a rigid schedule and is very stern and unhappy. Pretty Bit, a young girl who inexplicably rows her boat out from Ellivelddiw to visit Mr. Widdle every evening at six, warns him to start paying attention to the things growing around him. “If you’re not careful,” she said, “all the growing things are going to want so much to be watched that they will grow and grow and grow to giant size. Then you’ll not have any village left.”
The sea breeze comes along and throws everything out of whack — his villagers abandon him for the free-loving ways of Ellivelddiw and his schedule goes to hell. When he rouses from his stupor and leaves his house, he finds that Pretty Bit was right.
This is what it was like to come home to Troy yesterday after two weeks away. Trees that were budding when I left have exploded in full frenzy. Everything is bigger and greener and lusher. Spring is a wonder.
May 19, 2009 at 5:45 am
I read this book 7,000 times growing up and never noticed that the town that Pretty Bit was from was Widdleville spelled backwards. I LOVED that book. I was just thinking about it the other day when a sea breeze was blowing through town and making me feel irresponsible!
May 19, 2009 at 8:32 am
that’s very funny. i guess when you start reading a book as a young child, certain things get stuck in your head and you never look at them differently…like the spelling of Ellivelddiw. I know I’ve done that with other things, like certain puns that I don’t get until much, much later, then suddenly it dawns on me.
August 31, 2009 at 2:48 pm
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