I HAD NEVER BEEN SO PROUD!

Illustration by Don Wood 1985, "King Bidgood's in the Bathtub!" by Audry Wood

When Tigger was in gradeschool she had certain books she loved to read. One of those books was "King Bidgood's in the Bathtub"! In her class, each child was asked to pick a story to tell and this was her choice. The story describes an unruly king who refuses to get out of his bath and tend to his duties. One by one, all the members of the court try to convince the King to leave his bath. The knight, the queen, and the duke all shout "King Bidgood's in the bathtub and he won't get out! At last the clever page saves the day by pulling the plug and draining the bath-water.

Tigger's story included facial expressions and great physical animation. As she practiced at home, the whole family gave her encouragement and ideas on how to act like the queen, or the knight etc. At the end of the story, she always added a little plugged nose with an arm straight up in the air to signify the draining of the tub--it was sooooo cute and funny too!

I thought this was a great classroom activity and had a lot of fun encouraging Tigger. Imagine my surprise when Tigger came home from school announcing that she had won best story in the class! Tigger was not so sure what this really meant, other than she got to tell her story again. A few days later, she announced that she was chosen one of the top story tellers in the entire school. Hmmmm?!.... this led to Tigger's first experience with public story telling! She had no idea what she had gotten into, and I had no idea what I had encouraged her to do!!

The entire community came together for the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival. Tigger was quite nervous when she saw the crowd and all the tents where stories would be told. She was very excited to see some of her friends and jumped around squealing and running here and there. Eventually, Tigger began asking when it would be her turn. "Any time now" I would tell her, which brought on several anxious bathroom breaks for Tigger. The OsmOne picked up immediately that she was nervous. But she did a great job!!! I don't recall whether she won a prize or not (although I know she received a story telling doll for participating!)