Title: Dylan's Cosydoze
Author: Elsa Joseph
Date: 2017
Publisher: New Generation
Quote: "`Where is Dylan's Cosydoze?' asked Mum, her face turning white. 'We really do have to find it or he won't sleep tonight!'"
Dylan is one of those coddled children who are still wearing specially absorbent (and toxic) "nappies" though they're clearly able to go to the toilet, and who are indulged in obsessions with having a favorite blanket, toy, pillow, etc. "for security," without which they're unable to sleep. Dylan likes to visit his grandmother, but when her dog borrows his Cosydoze, a favorite sheet on which he's been allowed to become dependent, he "howls," throws extra food on the floor, and throws all the other toys out of his crib. Only when he finds his Cosydoze does he settle down and go to sleep. Now "it's grown-up time," says Gran. "Shall we play a game...or watch a DVD? Or look through my old pictures when we've had our tea?" But tiresome little Dylan has tired his parents out so thoroughly that they're asleep on the sofa.
In my mind the "ghost," or memory, of my mother, is saying, "What a stupid book. What a stupid family. I don't want to read that book any more. If those grown-ups had any sense, they would just let that silly little Dylan howl for his Cosydoze until he got tired and fell asleep. Then in the morning he'd know that he was able to sleep without the Cosydoze."
Well, if her children were anything to judge by, my mother might have been less than an expert on rearing children who tiptoe around other people's "feelings"...but although we all had favorite toys, pillows, shirts, etc., we did learn not to howl and make ourselves tiresome if we misplaced them. And also we were all housebroken before age two/
None of The Nephews ever behaved like disgusting little Dylan in this book, either. It was possible for adults to enjoy visits from them.
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