When my eldest child Ibrahim was very small, he had to visit the dentist for his first check-up. He was absolutely terrified of what might happen, having heard horrifying stories from his friends about injections, drills and bloody tooth extractions.
In the waiting room, I tried to reassure Ibrahim that everything would be just fine. Looking for a distraction, I picked up a book from the coffee table: We’re Going on A Bear Hunt, by Michael Rosen, and began to read: ‘We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!’ Meanwhile the characters find their walk interrupted by long grass, mud and other challenges.
