If I only had a green nose

This is one of my very favorite children's books. Believe it or not, I feel very encouraged when I read it. The object of the story is that Willy Withit decides that painting your nose is the "new thing" so all of the sudden EVERY wemick MUST have their nose painted green. If you have a green nose "you are classy you are keen, you are awesome, you are GREEN!"I know, cheesy. The whole idea is actually very much so.At the beginning of the book Punchinello thinks it's so too, but after being called a few names, and being pressured by peers. Punchinello gets his nose painted and struts around with it in the air like all the other green noses. Now I know this sounds very silly, but it's like that in this world too, only instead of green noses, it's fashionable clothes, sports cars and lots of other things, not necessarily BAD but not useful at all. Especially when it's worn just for attention, or because we worry about what other people will think about you if you don't have "the essentials". Who needs a green nose, who needs fashionable clothing? The people who have their convertibles and stylish jeans may look good, but it's just as bad as if they had orange noses. the book just helps me see that it is just as ridicules. It reminds me of a song we had on a christian kids tape once, the chorus went like this: If everybody does it, we don't./ If everybody has it, we won't./ If every body's going, we'll go the other way. /If everybody does it, we don't. Now that's putting it a bit blunt, but it's true. I should be in the world but not of it. I should not be dictated to by the fashion world of Paris, or the latest fad, but by my conscious. Cheerio, Lyd-bee