Please suggest a poem/reading for DD2's "welcoming" celebration

[franch]

It's just an informal family gathering to celebrate DD2, who's nearly 1. For DD1 a niece read Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All by Maya Angelou - something that similarly touches on starting out as a girl would be fantastic, but I'm open to suggestions.

[myermay]

Message withdrawn

[franch]

That's very sweet myermay

[motherinferior]

Do you know, I'd be faintly tempted to have a reading of The PaperBag Princess. It's such a very, very good example for girls

[Tommy]

I love this:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

It's from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

[franch]

Are you serious MI? I don't know it so should I check it out?

The Prophet a def classic Tommy

[motherinferior]

It's a lovely kids' book. About a little girl called Elizabeth who is a Beautiful Princess but is very unlike some Beautiful Princesses.

[franch]

Would it work as a reading???

[franch]

bump

[fennel]

my girls love the Paper bag princess but it's a bit long as a reading. it ends with Elizabeth saying to the Prince "Ronald, you are very pretty but I don't want to marry you because you are a bum" (Canadian book, bum has different connotations I guess). my dds particularly like the bum bit.

[franch]

fennel sounds great - not quite what I was after as a reading tho!