Frederick by Leo Lionni

I love this story, but hated it at first. In typical Singaporean fashion, it made me upset that a shiftless bum emerges the hero of a children's story.

Frederick's a mouse who belongs to a happy mouse family. Winter is approaching and the family has to busy themselves gathering food to store. While they're all busy working, Frederick's sitting there dreaming in the sun ..."Frederick, why don't you work?" they ask. Yeah, why, you bum, I said in my heart when I read the story to Hannah for the first time, regretting not reviewing it before 'exposing' it to her. All those busy (but happy, don't forget) Worker Bee campaigns I grew up with came crowding in my (narrow) mind. " 'I do work,' said Frederick. 'I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days.' " I choked on this. What? You don't work and you expect to benefit from a social security net forged by hard-working, tax-paying citizens, er, mice?

But then, when the food stores were exhausted and the mice were sitting in their dark grey winter hole, Frederick painted the sun's warmth, and the autumn colours, and beautiful words, and the mice realised that perhaps there's a need for artists and poets in their lives too. That put me to shame. All my hypocritical words about how there's not enough art in Singapore and here I was feeling that mice like Frederick didn't pull their weight.

So now, this story's something special to me. Cos Hannah's a Frederick. She's a Ferdinand too (while all the other bulls were fighting and snorting and pawing, Ferdinand's happy to just sit there and smell the flowers ... more on Ferdinand another day). Like in ballet, or playgroup. All the other little children would be busy dancing or fighting or following the teacher, and my daughter will be happy just sitting there with a faraway glaze in her eyes and a blissful smile on her face. And then every so often, she'd emerge from her private world to utter something so astonishing or beautiful that it puts me to shame. 

Of course, this hasn't stopped me from trying to make her "be present". Yeah, I'm the parent sitting there in the corner of the classroom, not breathing, negative vibes shooting out all over the place, stabbing Hannah with googly eyes, willing her to look at me so that I can gesticulate wildly to her to "PAY ATTENTION". I know, I'm a hopeless, compulsive Type A personality that always has to be doing something or else I'm stressed out. 

Sadly, I used to be Hannah, and Freddy. My childhood was 'wasted' dreaming. I loved drawing. And writing stories. But it all died in the busy busy ethos here. I think my aunt articulated it best and sounded the death nell to my dreamy days. After I'd given her something I'd doodled, she said "artists have low IQ. That's why they can't do anything else".

That's just about right, isn't it? It all boils down to economics. Does The Arts bring in tourist revenue? Otherwise, is it worth supporting? Does Education mould the future of our nation? Should we take literature off the O level curriculum cos the students can't get As? Frederick is a commentary on the current philosophy governing our attitudes towards art, education, culture. My cousin, who runs a bookshop, started out with the noble goal of bringing good books to Singapore. Sometimes I'd tell her about a book with beautiful illustrations or humour, but after a year or two in the business, she said people don't buy beautiful illustrations. But when you tell them that the book is good for math, or science, it's whooshed off the shelves in no time.

So, thanks Leo Lionni. I'll try very hard to not exude PAY ATTENTION through my pores. But giving up glaring it is extremely hard.