Don’t sneer at the joy of childhood

SOMETIMES I feel so out of step with my peers — but then, I cry at Toy Story 3 so there’s no hope for me.

This year’s tender John Lewis advertisement is about a penguin called Monty and the little boy who owns him and feeds him a fish finger at teatime. It’s as soppy as any Christmas ad should be, and more fun than the Aldi one, which pans along carousing people and ends with Jules Holland abandoning all claims to be cool.

A penguin should be ‘cool’ but it’s not: Monty is warm and wants a partner — as you do, humans and animals alike. But I’ve seen one writer express horror at the idea of a live penguin being kept in captivity as a pet. Yes, really!

Another sneers that ‘once again, I’m dry-eyed. Some stupid penguin wants to cop off with another stupid penguin . . .’ Others (yawn) moan about the price of penguin toys in the stores.

Shall we break it to those unimaginative nay-sayers? This isn’t supposed to be taken seriously! It’s not about a real penguin! This is a little story!

Monty the penguin is alive in the boy’s imagination — as we see at the end when there’s a girl penguin under the tree, a companion for the first. We realise that his parents knew his dreams — and were happy to buy their son another fluffy toy to feed his heart rather than an electronic toy to exercise his thumbs. Hooray!

Human beings have always thrived through storytelling. Fairy and folk tales, myths, legend . . . all of them use metaphor to plant seeds within the imagination. They close the gap between unlike parts of our experience and whisper, ‘This is how you could be transformed.’

Storytelling l ooks f or meaning under the surface of things and heals at a deep level because it offers hope and compassion, too.

That’s why one of the most precious experiences for children is a bedtime book with an adult who loves stories and also shares the imaginative certainty that the beloved toy IS real and understands what you say.

Lessons in kindness start right there.