In my mind, there is nothing worse than battling the stomach flu. You are miserable for days, even after most of your really bad symptoms are gone. I haven’t had the stomach flu for years, but last week it took me down. And it took me down hard! After days of nothing but popsicles and Sprite, I’m finally feeling better. All of that time spent in bed wishing my sickness away though reminded me of one of the classic children’s books about unwanted illnesses, A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon.
Camilla doesn’t want to stick out by revealing her love of lima beans, a love she and I share but she doesn’t share it with most children. So she hides the fact that she loves the little green legumes in order to fit in. In doing so though, she ends up causing what I would call a system overload and a bad case of stripes that spirals out of control. No one can figure out what will make the stripes go away, but they try many things to cure the disease. When you’re feeling bad, don’t you do the same thing? I know I’ll try just about anything to make the pain go away. You can probably guess what ends up curing Camilla’s illness... a big bowl of the tiny little green guys.
I‘m pretty sure lima beans would have done nothing to help my stomach last week, but maybe I’ll have to try some this week. The next time you have the flu or even just a sniffle, cuddle up and read A Bad Case of Stripes. It might just cure what ails you.