Permission

“Everyone was perfectly fine with the way things were. Everyone but Mr. Tiger”, I read tracing the words across the page. My other arm wrapped around Sylvan. It is bed time. It could also be nap time, break time, or really any time, because we don’t need an excuse to read this book. It is his favorite. It is my favorite too.

He is three. He has the lines memorized.

“Good day, Mr. Tiger.”

“Good day, Mr. Deer”, he says, rolling his eyes.

“Lovely weather we are having”

“I suppose”, he answers with a toddler’s lisp.

“Indeed”.

We pause. He waits. In my best, stern and proper mother voice I read, “Now, children, please do not act like wild animals”, as a pack of wild animal children run across the page. He sighs in relief. The story is always the same.

The pages are gray. The animals and their town are straight, stiff and muted. Mr. Tiger’s eyebrows are my favorite detail. They are thick straight lines. “This is f*ing ridiculous”, they say in a children’s-picture-book- appropriate way.

We turn the page, and the next. Mr. Tiger’s eyebrows sag and get sad. They arch with surprise and move down the page. What is that Mr. Tiger up to?

We know, but turn the page anyway. We look at the page, and then each other, our eyebrows arched and wide eyed as if to say: “On all four legs!?!?!?!”

We have read this story so many times that we have created our own rhythm. It is a routine, almost on the level of performance, where Sylvan knows my lines and interjects his. Reading this book feels cozy and safe and I want to stop this moment forever.

As I turn the page and I can feel his anticipation: “Mr. Tiger became wilder and wilder each day”.

His whole body catapults forward as he roars: “ROAR!” Then he collapses against me in a fit of giggles.

“His friends did not know what to think.”

He points: “P” and pauses.

“Peculiar”, I remind him.

“Peculiar”, he says, “Wow. UNACCEPTABLE! Hmm.” The hmmm vibrates. I can sense his feeling of accomplishment. He said each word correctly. Mr. Tiger’s eyebrows disappear entirely. They reappear over big green eyes and then he takes off all his clothes. There is a full page spread of a naked tiger. Some days we pause here and question how a tiger covered in fur can be naked, but not today.

“Mr. Tiger” we both yell. “If you must act wild kindly do so in the WILDERNESS!” We are in sync and loud. The kind of loud that shouldn’t be permitted at bed time. It is dark outside and, for certain, the rest of the family can hear us during their bed time routines.

We run away with Mr. Tiger. Across mountains, meadows, waterfalls, and jungles. “ROAR”, Sylvan yells. He really yells. I always wonder how such a big, rough sound can come out of such a small person. And then he snuggles in, because we both know what happens next.

Mr. Tiger is lonely.

I pull Sylvan closer. Rain drops drip down the page and Mr. Tiger’s eyebrows are oh-so-sad. I hug Sylvan’s little body. Mr. Tiger decides to go home. Surprisingly, but long since not a surprise to us, the other animals in his town changed during his absence. They welcome him with smiles and are running around on twos and fours.

“Now Mr. Tiger felt free to be himself. And so did everyone else. The End.”

The final page lays open across my lap. We are a few months away from our first and only year at Head Start. Not too soon from now, Sylvan will be crying at pick up because he was teased for riding his sister’s bright pink hand-me-down bike. It is the first memorable lesson we learn about the society he was born into. He learns that in his pre-school classroom most of the children solidly endorse the idea that there are boy and girl colors. My eyebrows are short straight lines that say: “This is f*ing ridiculous”. I walk his bike out of sight of his classmates. We both walk to pre-school for a few days, slowly, while we figure out what comes next. “Buddy”, I say, “if the color is a problem, maybe we could paint your bike?” We don’t. We are tigers. He decides to keep riding his bike. We don’t talk about it again, but we both know that some rules shouldn’t be rules and need to be changed.

The story is finished, but we aren’t done with the book yet. I turn to the back flap of the book jacket. A self-portrait with friendly eyes and kind eyebrows looks back at us: “Hello. I am Peter Brown, and it is my professional opinion that everyone should find the time to go a little wild”. We read his permission every time.

I turn off the light and curl my body around his. He still fits and I hold him till he falls asleep. I think about the book. I try to figure out why I can read this book every day, multiple times a day, and still enjoy every reading. With Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, Peter Brown gives us permission to do so much more than go a little wild. He gives us the permission to go too wild, to find boundaries and overstep them, and to still have a home that welcomes you back. He gives us permission to learn, grow and change. He carves out a space for forgiveness and compromise in which everyone can become a little bit more themselves.

Sylvan is ten now. I don’t know exactly when we stopped reading Mr. Tiger goes Wild every day, but we did, at some point. I have long sorted through our picture books and passed full boxes on to friends with little ones. This book, I tucked back on the shelf. “For when littles come visit”, I told myself, “or maybe someday I will have grandkids”.

Those reasons aren’t entirely honest. I keep the book because I might need this bed time story. I know there will be a day where I need a reminder of when Sylvan was three and when we were both Tigers, together. All too soon, Sylvan will be thirteen, and he will be a Tiger all alone. I will need permission to let him go a little wild, too wild even, with the reminder that he will come home to a space where we are all free to become ourselves.

If you want to get your own copy of Mr. Tiger Goes Wild or learn more about the author, Peter Brown, here is his website: www.peterbrownstudio.com.

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