Little Hank and the Book of Truth

Once every fifty years five boys and five girls were granted acces to the towns old library. They were given the task to find the Book of Truth, which had been hidden by a mad old wizard long long time ago. In that book the solution to all of the towns questions and problems were to be found. The mad wizard told the people of the village, before departing from this eart, that only a child would be able to find the book, as he assumed they would search by the purity of the heart, not poluted by the mind or society. And in spirit of these words ten kids ranging from four till ten years old were randomly chosen and send to the library, in hope to find the Book.

Little Hank was amongst the ten lucky ones, it goes without saying that for every parent it was a great honour that their child was given the opportunity to go and look for the Book. And imagine what a future their son or daughter would have if he or she found the book! The same was true for Hank's mother and father. The day of the search, dressed in clothes even nicer than on their wedding,  they joined Hank, who was well dressed too of course, to the entrance of the old library. Just five years old, Hank didn't realy know how important his task was. But since his mom and dad had been talking about it for weeks now, Hank hoped he would not let them down. He was determined to find the book and make his parents happy and proud!

All of the kids waved goodbye to their parents and entered the library simultaneously. The first one to enter was Arnold, a tall ten year old boy. From a wealthy family, one of the richest in all of the wide country. He entered the room with thousands of books, all placed in bookcases made of the finest wood and reaching all the way up to the ceiling. It was impressive, but he had seen nicer things and -according to him- of more value. As he learned at home, something so important as the Book of Truth had to be something very expensive and beautiful. So Arnold searched and searched for a golden book. Since gold was the most expensive thing he knew, for sure that would be it. Soon he found a bookcase with easily 100 books of gold. Mesmerised by such wealth, Arnold flew up the , but he was too wild and fell down, followed by the books that landed upon him. Arnold's search ended here.

Esmeralda was the fifth to enter the room. After Arnold the children went in search of the pretiest books, since beautiful it had to be, that great Book of Truth. But all three left the room without the book they were looking for. Esmeralda thought that the Truth would be well hidden. So she looked for a hidden, far off bookcase, but in that search, Esmeralda got lost in the labyrinth and couldn't find her way back.

Juliana had been tought by her parents that 'beauty was not everything', she went to look for the most ugly book. Since it wouldn't surprise her the Book of Truth would be ugly, dusty and broken. When she found such an ugly book, she turned very sad when it did not turn out to be the Book of Truth. She damned the ugly book and went in search of the most pretty amongst all books, but never could she decide what the pretiest of them all was. And she kept searching, leaving her forever unsatisfied with any of the beautiful books.

Little Hank was the last one to enter, the three kids before him went to look for the book in the highest of closets and went so high that they were too scared to come down. Hank entered the room, impressed by the magnitude and beauty of it all. He had already decided just to follow his heart. And he walked straight to a book, in the middle of shelves and not more pretty or ugly than any other book. It was not big, not small, neither thin nor thick. And just as he was ready to pick out the mediocre looking book, he thought of his mom and dad. How they both counted on him so hard, and he released the book he was about to take. And in anxiety of letting his parents down, he remained undecided and was unable to pick the Book of Truth. And for ever and ever Hank is standing now in front of the bookcase, thinking of ways not to let his parents down.