Madeleine's New Business Idea

Well, at the ripe old age of 7, Madeleine is ready to launch her career, side by side with her sister.  She even created her own advertisement:

Introducing:
Silly Sisters
made up of Illistrater Madeleine
and Athur Julia


Madeleine's idea is to create picture books, illustrated by herself and written by Julia.  She is determined to get this business underway as soon as possible, and began trying to affix her advertisement to our front windows.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  HOW can I stick this to the window?  Can you get me some tape?
ME: Oh, honey, I really don't want you taping things to the window.
MADELEINE: But I *need* to hang this!
ME: What is it?
MADELEINE: Okay.  So Mommy.  Me and Julia are gonna have jobs.  We're gonna make picture books and Julia's gonna write them and I'm gonna illustrate them.
ME: Okay.  Why do you need to hang this?
MADELEINE: Because Mommy!  How else would people know to ORDER them?
ME: Well, you should probably have some books made first before you advertise.
MADELEINE: No!  Mommy!  We need to start RIGHT AWAY!  Because I really really want to have a job when I'm a kid!
ME: Why?
MADELEINE: Because.  It would just be so much more FUN to have a job.
ME: It's really not that fun to have a job.
MADELEINE: But Mommy!  I want to have a job when I'm a KID!
ME: Kids don't really need jobs though.
MADELEINE: Albert Einstein had a job when he was a kid!!

So we hung her poster after all, using suction cups and hole-punching the paper to hang from the suction cups hooks.  Now Silly Sisters can truly begin!


Unfortunately, Julia is not a willing participant in this endeavor.

JULIA: Madeleine.  I don't WANT to write books with you.
MADELEINE: Julia, PLEASE??
JULIA: Why don't you just write them yourself?
MADELEINE: No!  I can't!  I'm not GOOD at writing!  Besides, writing is so BORING!
JULIA: But Madeleine.  The books I write AREN'T picture books.
MADELEINE: Julia, I *only* like making the pictures!
JULIA: But Madeleine!  I don't MAKE picture books.  My books never have any pictures in them!

I tried to subtly intervene.

ME: Julia, maybe you can just write a short story or something and Madeleine can come up with the illustrations.  Like a children's book.
MADELEINE: No, Mommy!  If Julia writes all the words first, then it's like she's the BOSS of me and I *have* to make the pictures SHE wants!
ME: Honey, that's how books work.  The story comes first, then the pictures.
MADELEINE: No, but I want to make the pictures that I come up with!
ME: Then make a book with only pictures and no words.
MADELEINE: No, those kids of books are DOPEY.
ME: Then write the words that go with your pictures yourself.
MADELEINE: I *can't.*  My writing is all FUNKY.
ME: What do you mean?
MADELEINE: (scampering off to her room) I'll SHOW you.

Madeleine them emerged with some random pages of classwork and pointed out her hand-writing.

MADELEINE: See?  Look!  Look at how BAD I am at writing these letters.

So it turns out she wants Julia for her hand-writing skills, not her story-telling prowess.  No wonder Madeleine thinks the writing part is boring.  Nobody prefers to hand-write things over typing or, better yet, dictating what you want and having your sister hand-write it out.


Julia has other projects in mind; namely, the formation of an American Girl band and chorus!  She even used her own Honors Chorus program as a model to create a program for her dolls:

I'm impressed.  Every single doll that she and Madeleine own are in the band AND chorus.  I never knew they had such musical dolls.  And I'm double impressed by the fact that child prodigy Baby Lily plays the trumpet AND the violin, as well as sings in the chorus!

Baby Lily Rowe, the most accomplished infant on Earth.

And here I thought *my* girls were accomplished by starting a book-creation business as kids.