Meaning of Siblings

When I was younger and incapable of reading or writing anything other than my name and repetitively singing the alphabet, I would always go along with what my mom and dad suggested for me, or told me to do. This went for whatI should wear, to what vegetables to eat, to which Sesame Street episodes I should watch and when  I should take my nap. This guidance in our earliest childhood years is necessary; how else would we learn to make decisions for ourselves in the future if we don't first see these decisions made for us. It is much the same with the books we read in our early childhood; these books are picked for us by our parents in order to instill important messages and morales that we will use later on in life. And although my parents may have chosen what books they read aloud to me, even among our collection of carefully curated children's picture books, I learned which I loved and wanted read to me over and over again, and which books I thought should have never ben put in our library in the first place. Among those of the former group there was one in particular that always stuck with me, entitled Julius the Baby of the World, by Kevin Henkes.

I always found this particular picture book interesting for many reasons. For one, its pictures are vibrant and colorful and depict the personification of mice, which is found very funny by people ages four and under, for whatever reason. Secondly, the picture book shows the relationship between an older sister and her younger baby brother, and how she learns to love him after rejecting him and hating him for taking her "place" as the one and only loved child in their family. As the story progresses, the protagonist, Lilly, meets her incredibly snobby cousin who agrees with Lilly that her new younger brother, Julius, is disgusting and repugnant, and smells awful. Lilly is suddenly taken aback, and defends her baby brother with all her heart, telling her cousin that he smells of roses and is the most beautiful baby in the world. Whilst reading, we can understand that the author wants children to absorb the meaning of sibling relationships and how important they truly are, and wants us to feel this defensiveness and love Lilly feels towards her baby brother Julius.

I think one of the reasons this book appealed to me so much when I was younger was that it put me in my sister's shoes, so to speak, so I could begin to make sense of our relationship and the different feelings she may have towards me at one point or another. My sister may have felt like she was a perfectly happy only child until I entered the world, and it makes me realize what a difficult transition it must be to have a younger sibling and to adapt to sharing everything with them, to looking out for them and caring for them. To suddenly have a new intrusion in your life that you must play with and love is something that is hard and tumultuous, and this book helped me grow up considering tha my sister doesn't have it all that easy, after all.