Story chosen for Facebook debut

I’ve found the book.

I just haven’t found the time to make my Facebook debut.

A few weeks back, when we were all going more than a little nuts with the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, Portland Police Chief Nathan Springer asked me if I would take part in a very cool initiative his department had put together.

With schools closed, kids stuck at home and parents harried, the folks at the police department decided to turn part of its Facebook page into story time for kids.

The idea was that an officer or dispatcher or reserve would read a children’s story while recording it on their phone. Then the video of the story being read would be posted online.

It was a sweet idea, a route to connect cops and kids in a positive way.

And it quickly spread beyond the bounds of the police department. Other law enforcement officers joined in. Then public officials. Then radio and TV folks.

So when Nathan asked, I was a quick, “Yes.”

But the first challenge was to find the right book to read.

There’s no shortage of children’s literature on our bookshelves. While we’ve weeded out some of it, we keep a big supply on hand for grandchildren.

There were some great ones available, but there were some I couldn’t put my finger on.

Some were a little too long. “Blueberries for Sal” fell into that category.

Some had probably already been read by somebody else. “Goodnight Moon” had almost certainly been taken.

I couldn’t find “The Monster at the End of this Book.” I know our daughter Sally has a copy, but I’m not sure I could do a satisfactory job of imitating Grover from Sesame Street to make it work.

Others were too short. “Busy Day, Busy People” had been a favorite for all our kids. So had “Puppies are Like That.” But they would be done in a handful of seconds.

So would favorites like “Hippos Go Berserk,” a counting book that still brings a smile to my face. “One hippo all alone, calls two hippos on the phone” and we’re off to the races. Hippo races, I guess.

Then I found one of my favorites, “The Biggest Bear.”

It was a storybook from my childhood that, for some reason, I attach to memories of my Ronald grandparents’ home in Richmond. Maybe it was a Christmas Eve gift there.

I had treasured the book as a kid, and I must have nattered on about it over the years with my wife and daughters because not too many years ago I received a brand new copy to replace the one from my childhood.

“The Biggest Bear” tells the story of a boy in the north woods — bear country — who raises a bear cub until it is a menacing behemoth, terrorizing chicken houses, knocking over bee hives and generally making a nuisance of itself.

The bear, who starts out as a cub in the illustrations, grows to a size that astonishes.

Eventually, the boy is told he has to take the bear into the woods and kill it.

Spoiler alert: He doesn’t kill it. Instead, it ends up in a zoo.

As I said, it’s a favorite.

But it still didn’t seem right for the Facebook story time gig.

I had just about given up when I found it: “The Golden Egg Book.”

It’s simple. It’s just long enough. And it’s one my wife and I read countless times to our kids.

The plot is simple: A bunny finds an egg and wonders what’s inside. Then the egg cracks open and out pops a little yellow duck.

Tolstoy it is not.

But it’s a sweet read.

Now all I have to do is get around to reading the thing while recording myself on the phone. With luck, that will be done before the next pandemic.