The First Camp Out

Wren has a plan. It's big. It's bright.

It's this: Wren sleeps outside tonight.

It is two o'clock. The sun is high. Wren is enormously brave at two o'clock.

The tent goes up. It takes a WHILE. And then it's there, in the garden, thirty steps from the back door. A house. A Wren house. Made of air.

And then the dark. It isn't slow.

A rustle. Grass. That's grass. That's fine. A creak. That's wind. That's fine. A THING. A THING went past. WHAT THING.

And through the tent flap, there it is. The house. The window. Lit. It's warm in there. Somebody is doing dishes. It is exactly the colour of indoors.

Thirty steps. That's all it is. Thirty steps and a door that isn't locked.

Until a grown-up sits down in the tent doorway. Not in. Not out. And doesn't say you'll be fine, or you're a big kid, or there's nothing out there really. A grown-up says one thing:

"You're allowed to want to come in. That's what makes staying out brave."

• It gets what actually makes it hard. A back-garden camp out isn't frightening because the garden is dangerous. It's hard because the house is thirty steps away, lit and warm and unlocked, and going in feels like failing. That is the whole book.
• One sentence they can keep. You're allowed to want to come in. That's what makes staying out brave. It separates the wanting from the doing, and it takes the shame out of the wanting. It works on a lot more than tents.
• There's a reason to stay, and it isn't willpower. There's a hedgehog three feet from the tent flap, and nobody in the house gets to see it. Only Wren.
• Built to be read out loud. Bouncy verse and a two-word refrain that never changes while its meaning flips completely underneath you.
• Dark, never scary. The night spreads are deep warm blue, full of stars and soft detail. This is a bedtime-safe book about the dark.
• Do not close it early. Because tomorrow night it's Pocket who has to stay out. The last page is the one that gets the grown-ups.
• Ages 4-8. Warm hand-painted illustrations on every spread.

From The Very First Time Books. Big firsts, small hands.