The Hungry Letter I
by Daniel Errico
Illustrated by Michiko Cayce
The Letter I lived in the Land of Words.
He was always, always eating.
When he was a lowercase i, he ate more than any of the other letters.
He learned to crawl so that he could eat all the dog’s food.
He didn’t just grab food from the shelves in the supermarket, he grabbed entire shopping carts!
He wasn’t allowed in the sand box because sand and toast was one of his favorite foods.
One day he went on a camping trip with all the other young letters.
They were going to hike and swim and tell stories by the fire.
The Letter I was excited!
His mom packed him enough food for two days.
The first morning the Letter I was so hungry that he ate a lot of his food.
The other letters went hiking, but he was much too full to move.
He didn’t like missing the hike at all.
Later on he got hungry again and ate some more.
The other letters went swimming, but he couldn’t go because he had just eaten.
He didn’t like missing swimming either.
That night they all sat around the fire and told stories.
They wanted to roast some marshmallows, but the Letter I had gotten hungry and eaten all of the marshmallows for that night!
The other letters were not happy with him.
His stomach hurt for the rest of the night.
The next morning the Letter I realized that he had almost no food left.
He had eaten it all the first day.
At first he felt like he was starving, but then he realized that a small amount of food can go a long way.
He could go hiking because he wasn’t too full.
He could go swimming because he hadn’t been eating all day.
And that night everyone got to have a roasted marshmallow. It was much nicer when the other letters ate with him.
From that day on, the Letter I didn’t eat more than his share…most of the time.
In the Land of Words, you can have too much of a good thing.
