The Fire Books

In case you didn't know, Mr. T is obsessed with fire stuff, all of it. Firefighters, fire trucks, fire engines, rescue helicopters, fire boats, pretty much everything except for actual fire. He's terrified of that. I'm thinking that's a good thing. Today was our normal library day and the first thing he says every time we hit the library is "let's go see the fire books" - for 2 years now. We have checked out every fire book our library has about 30 times each. When they have a new fire book it's a huge celebration. This has happened maybe 4 times. After the fire books, he wants to get a DVD and then I tell him he needs to pick out a few story books from the fiction section. I don't know about you, but there are only so many times I can read non-fiction books about fire trucks before I want to start chucking them out the window. The worst part is, due to the inherent nature of the job, they don't really talk about what firefighters ACTUALLY DO. They never rescue cats out of trees, yet in the books it's done all the time. Rarely ever do they drive the engine in a parade, yet that is also an almost every book event. I guess it doesn't make a good children's story to talk about covering up a sucking chest wound, treating a gory bloody head injury, having patients puke on you or caring for a GI bleed but really that's a lot more of what they do. So for now, kids think all they do is wash the engine and rescue cats from trees.

 I have been trying for awhile to get a good picture of him in the fire section of the library but something about the lighting, the busyness of the (lovely) carpet, and the books always makes them come out blurry. I usually have my point and shoot camera at the library too since I feel kind of weird pulling out the huge one there. Today I just got as close as I could and popped the flash.

And yes, he has been wearing that fire costume for 2 days straight now. Currently, as I am typing this, he is watching a Popular Mechanics video for kids on firefighters and fire rescue. It has no end and he shows no sign of being tired of it. I just wish more kids fiction authors would write books about fire stuff, books that were pleasant for the parents to read. And maybe someone could write a simple chapter book series on firefighters? That would be great. Thanks.