Review- The Old Man's Bag by T.W.H. Crosland

I was looking for some old story books to read to my 3 year old son when I came across this one. I read it to him last week one night when he was up really late and having trouble falling asleep. This book simply put was WEIRD!

An old man takes with him this bag and steals a hen. A red policeman catches him and chases him for 5 miles (an old man can run that far? I don't think I can do 1!!). As he is being chased he drops the bag. When the policeman catches the old man they go back to the bag to find it empty but with a big hole in it. The hen must of escaped. The old man was given a warning. The old man's wife sews up the bag and goes out the next day and steals a roll of butter. The same policeman catches her and she runs for 10 miles (man these old people are in good shape) she too drops the bag but this time the butter is still in there. The policeman find the old woman to be polite so tells her if the weather is nice he will stop by her house tomorrow to arrest her. The next day just as it starts to rain the policeman shows up. The old woman tells him he promised he would not come if the weather was bad. The policeman agreed and walked home in the rain. He then decides he will become a soldier as he is tired of being a policeman. When the couple find out they go out and steal tons of wonderful things. a couple of rolls of butter, hens, and tons of other things to cook. After a grand meal the wife sends the husband back out to steal again before the soldier changes his mind and becomes a policeman. The man comes back but this time with a cat and her kittens, hay and broken glass. The wife is mad and tells him to toss all the items. The old man asks her what he should do with the bag. And she tells him to do whatever he wants. So he cuts it up into small pieces and burns it. The next day she asks him why he did that and he said guess. She guesses and guesses but never comes up with the reason. Then the book ends telling the reader to ask their mom why he destroys the bag.

The story was kind of long (I cut out parts in my summary) for a children's book and really weird. I did however love the illustrations in it. The book is rather silly and leaves the moral of it up to the parent. Thankfully my son is still too little to ask me why the old man destroys the bag. I give the book 1 and half out of 5 stars. I don't see myself ever reading it again but I would look at the drawings with my son again.

Challenges Fullfilled
Hogwarts Reading
Buck Stops Here
E-Public Domain Challenge