Fansided

Hardwood Paroxysm summer reading recommendations

By HP Basketball Network

Jun 27, 2014; Independence, OH, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers first round pick Andrew Wiggins speaks to the media at Cleveland Clinic Courts. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 27, 2014; Independence, OH, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers first round pick Andrew Wiggins speaks to the media at Cleveland Clinic Courts. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports /
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Apr 13, 2014; Sacramento, CA, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love (42) runs up the court after scoring against the Sacramento Kings during the first quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Sacramento Kings defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 106-103. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 13, 2014; Sacramento, CA, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love (42) runs up the court after scoring against the Sacramento Kings during the first quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Sacramento Kings defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 106-103. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports /

The Caboose Who Got Loose by Bill Peet, Recommended for Kevin Love

By Steve McPherson (@steventurous)

Should the regular season begin with Kevin Love still wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves jersey, I would hand him a copy of Bill Peet’s The Caboose Who Got Loose on opening night. Peet was a children’s writer and illustrator, and just about every one of his 36 published books is pure gold, but Caboose is one of the very best.

It’s the story of Katy Caboose, who dislikes being last with “an endless black cloud of smoke rolling past.” She’s not a downer, exactly, but wishes someday she could be “something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree.” And who would blame her? The train travels through treacherous territory, up the side of steep mountains and through dark tunnels where she worries about caboose-eating monsters.

But then one day, while Katy is parked in a trainyard waiting to be harnessed to yet another train, a switchman’s shack chats her up, telling her that she has the best life from what he can see. He’d like trade places with her but he’s stuck up on a post looking out over a crappy trainyard.

So Katy brightens up when she leaves again, enjoying the countryside ride, but when the train she’s hitched to heads up a mountain pass, the coupler bolt snaps and she goes rocketing down the track, off the edge of a canyon and … gets stuck between two spruce trees. A crew comes looking for her, but they only look for wreckage at the bottom of the canyon, not up in the trees. “Katy stayed in the treetops,” writes Peet. “No one ever found her / except for the squirrels and the birds all around her. / At last she was free, just as free as the breeze / and how Katy did love it up there in the trees.”

Like so many of Peet’s books, there’s a moral, but it’s not the simple kind of didactic moral that so many children’s books rely on. It’s nothing so plain as advice to live in the moment because that is what will make you happy. That’s in there, but the twist where Katy ends up getting what she wants anyways is the masterstroke. Accepting where you are and living in the now doesn’t mean giving up on what you want; it’s just recognizing that some things are beyond your control. Things can change in the most unexpected ways and deliver you into the situation you long for.

Simply put, living in the present is not a way to bury your head in the sand. It’s actually the best way to make the future happen.

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