A Thought About a Thought

I’ve always loved reading so much!  I remember as a child I loved books and as a teen I think I read every book in every series I could get my hands on (Babysitters Club!!!!).  I always thought that when I had children I would want to instil in them that same love.  Well… that second part isn't panning out like I had planned but luckily I have other little kids around that I can read with. 
When Chris bought the whole set of Roald Dahl books when we first got married I thought he was crazy.  Not crazy for buying the books, but crazy for buying THOSE books.  I mean, I had read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a child but there were WAY more in the set than just that.  As time went by, the books just sat on the shelf.  The longer I lived here, the more I heard about how much the English just love Roald Dahl and ALL of his books. 
I decided that I would take them to the twins house whenever I was watching them and we’d read because the only other books they had there were: a. in German or b. books I'd read them 1,000’s of times before.
So we started with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the kids LOVED it (they were also reading it in school) and I found I loved it too (especially making all the different voices).  We often talked about the factory and did crafts along with what we’d read.  We painted our own interpretation of the factory with chocolate paint (water and cocoa powder), drew the characters, and one day even had “Nerds” from the American shop because – they were made by Wonka!
I was surprised at how fast we got through the book and decided the next book we’d read was called, The Twits.  It was about 90 pages long, so I figured we’d have that book for a few weeks.  Nope – one rainy day we sat down and me and the twins (they are 5 I might add) finished the book in one sitting!  It was great!!
I don't know why Americans do read more Roald Dahl, but the books are very fun!
I found this quote in the book that I loved!  Let me give you some background.  The Twits are a horrible, dirty, ugly, nasty couple.  Who hate everything – even children!  He has a long hairy beard that gets food stuck in it and he never cleans it and she is the most ugly person you’ll ever see!  And they love to play jokes on each other!!  Here is the quote about Mrs. Twit (and why she is the way she is!):

“But the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn't born ugly.  She’d had quite a nice face when she was young.  The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older.  Why would that happen?  I’ll tell you why.

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face.  And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Roald Dahl – The Twits