Tom takes a nostalgic look back at some of the children's books that, with great regret, he is allowing his almost-teen twins to purge from their bookshelves, in the hope that some other children may enjoy them as much as his kids did, back in the day....

I spied a familiar cover among a stack of castoffs my 12-year-old son wanted to get rid of. While I understand his desire to clear shelf space for science, history and manga books -- all of which are far more interesting to him at this age -- my heart skipped a beat to see it go.

It's Cowboy & Octopus, a children's book written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. It's short, it's nonsensical and it doesn't have a plot -- but it was one of the first books I bought for my twin son and daughter when they were 4 or 5 years old and we were just getting to know each other. (They weren't my kids at the time, but that soon changed. I just had to convince their mother, first.)

The book contains several very short vignettes featuring the titular cowboy and octopus. Each character was illustrated exactly once, it appears, and then cutouts of those two figures were used repeatedly, posed or cropped in slightly different ways, with various items arranged around them in a manner related to that specific vignette.

And the stories, like I said, are pure nonsense. Here's an example:

Chow time
Cowboy decides to surprise Octopus and make him dinner.
Octopus is definitely surprised.
"Heavens," says Octopus. "What is this?"
"I cooked all my favorites just for you," says Cowboy. "Beans and bacon, bacon and beans, and just plain beans ... with a little bit of bacon."
"Oh my," says Octopus.
Octopus doesn't like beans. He doesn't like bacon.
But he does like it that Cowboy has worked so hard just for him.
Octopus licks one bean.
"Mmm-mmm," says Octopus. "I am so full."
Cowboy smiles. He is glad his friend likes his surprise.
"Wait till you see what's for dessert," says Cowboy.
Octopus says, "I'll bet I can guess."

See? Nonsense. But when I read this book to the children, they howled with laughter every time. And they begged for it over and over and over again. I quickly lost count of the number of times I read this one aloud.

Maybe I'll put Cowboy & Octopus on a shelf in the basement and hold onto it a little longer.