The Joy of Lying to Small Kids

Browsing in a book-store in Florence a couple of months back I came across a laugh-out loud book of cartoons named "Great Lies to Tell Small Kids" by one Andy Riley (also author of The Bunny Suicides as the blurb helpfully told me). The book has one lie per page accompanied by a funny illustration - its laugh riot!

As someone who thoroughly enjoys making up elaborate, unbelievable fabrications in response to irritating questions from kids and sending them happily on their way, I felt I'd found a kindred spirit. I also admired the ingenuity of the author for having found a way to make money out of an activity that I'd always just seen as a lazy hobby. I immediately bought the book for my precocious seven (or is it six) year old niece who was wandering through the bookshop with me, and we had a great time going through it.

Partly in tribute to Andy's genius and partly to further the cause of confusing annoying kids, here's a few more lies I came up with that I think might be good to put out there. Feel free to use any and all of them on any unsuspecting brats that cross your path, dear reader. Also - of course - feel free to contribute.

1. Moths are actually very old butterflies who are too proud to use hair dye
2. The Romans were great environmentalists who fed people to lions to keep them from eating deer (Bambi!) instead
   
3. Babies come when two people send a jointly signed letter to Santa asking for a boy or a girl. Meanwhile Mom starts eating a lot of food and becoming really fat so she can produce milk for the baby when the stork finally brings it over.
   
4. There is no such thing as the moon - its just the sun at very low power, recharging itself until its time to go to school again.
   
5. Sea water is salty, because the United Nations decided to mix all the salt in the sea since there was no other place to put it
6. You never hear that Red Riding Hood lived happily ever after because the wood-cutter who killed the wolf was really an axe-murderer...
7. Have you heard? Santa won't be coming this year because his elves formed a union, went on strike and no toys have been made. You might as well have stolen that last biscuit from the jar!
8. Microwaves make things hot by piping heat in from the Sahara Desert
9. Lightning never strikes the same place twice because Indra/Zeus has really bad aim
10. Giraffes have two or more bumps on their heads depending on how many coconuts have fallen on them while trying to eat the coconut tree's leaves