The Cool Ride in the Sky

Best childrens book, hands down. I remember sitting on my grandma's lap when I was about 3 or 4 years old. She would read this story over and over and I never got tired of it. Fast forward 30 years later and it is now my son's favorite book. Every time I read him this story before bedtime it reminds me of grandma and the warm feeling it gave me and I get a smile on my face. This book really brings back such great memories.

The same Catholic family that gave me Once Upon a Dinkelsbuhl had a crazy uncle that would make tapes of himself reading childrens' books for us. The thing, the crazy thing, was that he would usually change the endings into horrible tragedies-like The Little Engine That Could who made it over the mountain just in time for her brakes to go out so that she went ripping through the town running over the children, chopping off their arms and terrifying the dolls and teddy bears so that they wet themselves and no one, I mean no one, got any lollipops. So, The Cool Ride in the Sky was on one of these tapes, and while it didn't have a twisted ending, the whole thing was so bleak and hot and Buzzard such and awful guy that I was sure Uncle Willie had made it up. Not so friends. He read the thing word for word, as I discovered for myself when I stumbled upon it in the library a few years back. So, Rabbit is truly pathetic, Monkey utterly conniving, Buzzard just as horrible as can be, and the whole thing freaky and wonderful as Uncle Willie.