Put it back, baby.

He had the whole world in his hands.

An eye-catching display at a home goods store caused me to stop and take a closer look.

Paper globes, all sizes and colors, were heaped in bins.  As a globe collector, I was intrigued.

I picked one out, turning it in my hands to examine the detailed outlines of all the places in the world where I’ve been and where I want to go.

A boy, about six, trailed after his mom and noticed me looking at a globe. He picked one up too and held it high. “Mom! What’s this? What is this?” he asked with curiosity in his voice.

His mom barely glanced our way. Harried and distracted, she pushed her loaded cart past us. “I don’t know,” she called over her shoulder.  “Put it back, baby.”

In his small hands, the boy turned the globe as I had, lingering a moment to look at the colorful continents, the deep blues of oceans and seas.  “It’s a globe,” I said to him quietly.

“Put it BACK, I said!” the mother snapped down the aisle. 

The boy obeyed, tossing the globe in with the others.  He hurried to catch up to her near a display of paper plates, where I heard her complaining that she didn’t know why she had to be the one to always provide snacks.

He held the world in his hands, I thought, and his mother told him to put it back.  She didn’t see the moment as an opportunity, didn’t even look at what his young, inquisitive mind had discovered.

I longed for another moment to stand next to him, globes in our palms.  Here is where you are right now, I’d say. Here is where you may one day go. 

But he was gone.

“What’s this?” he’d asked.  What do I hold in my hand, unexplored, unchartered?

“I don’t know,” she’d said. “Put it back, baby.”

It's never too early—or too late—to instill appreciation for the world beyond your door. Books are a perfect way to introduce your young readers to other cultures.