If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

And so, yes, of course, I read children's books and still read books to my kids.

And I actually was reading a children's book to my son, Leo, my six-year-old, just a few days ago.

It's called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

So do you know anything about that book? Are you familiar with that one? Oh, no, no.

That's a little before my time.

Okay.

Well, if you aren't up to snuff, if you're listening and you're like, I don't know this children's book, if you give a mouse a cookie.

So it's this classic from 1985.

I think we find the lump of labor idea so intuitive and satisfying because we don't understand our own minds.

And the best way to grok this particular aspect of psychology is to read a classic paper by Laura Numeroff, which was published not as a scientific journal article per se, but as a children's book called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

This section's called Rat Race.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is an allegory about a nameless boy who unwittingly enslaves himself to the rapacious whims of a rodent.

Once he gives the titular mouse the titular cookie, the mouse demands milk to wash the cookie down, then a straw to drink the milk, then a napkin to wipe its milk mustache, and so on.

After several pages of these hijinks, the mouse becomes thirsty, drinks a second glass of milk, and then becomes desirous for another cookie, beginning the cycle anew and making it clear that the boy has damned himself to eternal torment.

Every parent should have this in their bookshelf for their kids, 'cause it's just such a great starter book for understanding separation and managing separation anxiety.

Yeah, and then my recommendations is actually because this is the book that we're, we've been reading a lot in my house with my four-year-old, and it's If You Give a Pig a Pancake, or If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

They're all kind of the same theme, but it's just a book that is great.

It's very predictable, and it supports little ones understanding predictability, memory, sequencing, understanding context.