Found this draft hidden in the blog......
Read "Sylvester's Magic Pebble" with Maddie this morning. I always cry when I read it. But Maddie got hung up on the lion who frightens Sylvester into turning himself into a rock and just thought that everyone in the book was scared that the lion was coming to their house to roar at them instead of grasping the whole missing child angle. At the climax, when the parents are unknowingly picnicking atop the rock that is their son, laying out their sad picnic items, trying to make a life without their child and so obviously failing, Maddie just keeps going on about the lion and, "Why is that one laughing? Why is that one crying? Why is that an umbrella?" I tried reasoning with her that her questions would all be answered if she just listened to the story. I told her that she just had to listen for a minute and she'd know everything. Also, I'm all choked up and crying and just wanting to finish the story and get Sylvester back to being a donkey and with his parents.
I'd close the book and give her a chance to calm down and shush but as soon as I turned to that page to start again, the suspense and emotion would be too much and she couldn't be still. Finally, I told her that I was going to take a walk.
Question: Do people who have trouble with empathy, with adopting different perspectives, ultimately effect more change in the world because their focus on what they want is undiluted by caring about what others want?
