Oliver Twist and the Issue of Annulment, by Mrs. Sheryl Temaat

I have read many stories to my grandson, Willy Temaat, age eight. But none of them captured his mind, heart, and soul like Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Even filmmakers have gone overboard in making and remaking movies twenty times about the starving orphan boy who loses the only home he knew from birth simply by asking for a second helping of gruel. For his eighth birthday recently, Willy received some of the many Oliver Twist items available on the Internet like the hat and shirt in the photo:

Willy often repeats to me the words of ten-year-old Oliver to Mr. Bumble, the overseer of the Parish Workhouse where orphans grew up in the nineteenth century. The words: “Please, sir, can I have some more?” outraged Mr. Bumble to the point that he took Oliver by the hand and showed him the way out. Bumble locked the gate behind the child. …