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5 Characters From Children’s Literature Who Could Have Used Fidget Spinners
If you’re a parent of an elementary school-aged child, you’re probably familiar with fidget spinners. This toy is the latest gotta-have-it craze, following in the footsteps of the Hula hoop and Beanie Babies before it. A fidget spinner purportedly calms anxious and fidgety kids through its mesmerizing spinning. Children’s literature is filled with daring, energetic, fidgety kids. Just imagine how much fun these characters would have with a fidget spinner.
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Tom Sawyer (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain)
Free-spirited Tom Sawyer grew up in times during which even the most fidgety kids were expected to sit still and calm through the most boring events. In a famous chapter of Mark Twain’s classic, Tom is struggling mightily to remain motionless and well-behaved in church while Reverend Sprague drones on and on. To keep himself from worse mischief, he takes a pinchbug from a box in his pocket. The beetle gets away and attracts a stray poodle, who snaps at it and then sits on it and yelps in agony, disrupting the service. Tom thinks “there was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of variety in it.” Get this boy a fidget spinner and maybe he won’t have to resort to beetles.
The Pigeon (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems)
People are always telling the Pigeon “no”. He’s not allowed to drive the bus, no matter how much he begs. The duckling gets a cookie and he doesn’t. He’s not allowed to stay up late. But what’s one request that you can say yes to for a jittery, hyperactive pigeon? If he wants a fidget spinner, give him one!
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Eloise (Eloise, by Kay Thompson and Hillary Knight)
You’d think that just living at the Plaza Hotel in New York would be distraction enough for a little girl. But six-year-old Eloise needs more distraction that most. “Getting bored is not allowed,” she insists. If someone were to give her a fidget spinner, maybe she wouldn’t have so much time to braid her turtles’ ears, order “one roast-beef bone, one raisin and seven spoons” from room service, and issue endless demands.
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Harriet (Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh)
Harriet, the intrepid kid detective, gets in all kinds of trouble from writing rude notes about people in her notebook. If she were to occasionally chill out with a fidget spinner, maybe she wouldn’t have as much time to do the spying that gets her in so much trouble.
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Marvin K. Mooney (Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now?, by Dr. Seuss)
Why is the narrator so insistent that Marvin K. Mooney leave? He suggests Marvin hit the road in a Zumble-Zay, jet, or Gazoom, and his pleas for Marvin to leave becoming increasingly insistent. If Marvin were quietly occupying himself with a fidget spinner, perhaps the narrator would say he was welcome to stick around.