Years ago, I read Another Brother to my grandchildren for the first time. Matthew Cordell’s story about Davy, the oldest of thirteen brothers, amused us in part because Davy and his family are sheep. Each of the twelve younger lambs copies everything Davy does, from eating Toot Loops for breakfast to walking like a monkey to burping. 

All this drives Davy crazy, until the day his brothers develop their own preferences and stop imitating him. That’s when Davy discovers that he’s, of all things, lonely. 

One morning — and here we reach the high-water mark of my grandchildren’s appreciation of this story — Davy trips over something in the bathroom and curses. 

“Honkin’ plunger!” he says, and from somewhere in the house, he hears a tiny response: “Honkin’ plunger!”  

The voice is that of his newest sibling, a sister named Gertie, who follows Davy everywhere he goes. 

We didn't get that far in the story right away. For a long time, we were stuck on “Honkin’ plunger!” a passage I was entreated to read, read again, and to keep re-reading, while my listeners howled with joy. 

Thus did “Honkin’ plunger!” join the family lexicon, along with the table grace “Make a circle, keep us in," (courtesy of Ohio poet Arnold Adoff), a handful of Star Wars quotes, and several memorable real-life epigrams from my grandchildren’s parents. For instance, my toddler daughter and I were driving when we saw a cat in the ditch at the side of the road. 

“We could pick up that cat,” she said, predictably. “That would take its sniffs away.” 

Since then, “That would take its sniffs away,” is what we say in response to hopeful but unlikely proposals. The same daughter at about the same age contributed another quote early one morning when she wandered into the bedroom where her father and I were just waking up. 

“You could turn this place into a disco,” she said, looking speculatively around the shadowy room. “It wouldn’t be hard to do.” 

It’s even funnier now than it was when discos were in vogue. 

Most of these well-worn phrases are firmly entrenched in family lore, so you can imagine my indignation when my younger daughter told me her sons had forgotten “Honkin’ plunger!” Apparently, the phrase had been squeezed from their memories by soccer rules, Harry Potter, and several dozen consecutive digits of pi. 

Well, if “Honkin’ plunger” had slipped away, I intended to put it back. I searched several area libraries, where the story of Davy was either checked out or removed from the shelves (Don’t get me started on libraries’ practice of “deselecting” less active titles.) 

When my daughter heard about my search, she pulled out her phone, ordered the book, and brought it with her when the family gathered to observe my husband’s birthday. As the celebration was nearing its end, I ordered all three children to sit down and listen up while I refreshed their memories. 

They did, and once again, at ages twelve, twelve and nine, they were carried away by the story. When we reached The Page, I didn’t even have to cue them to join in the chorus: “HONKIN’ PLUNGER!” 

I finished the book and looked at them sternly over it. 

“Don’t make me have to read this book again,” I said. 

I probably will, though. It lives here now, for one thing, near Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, and Melissa Sweet’s Some Writer: A Biography of E. B. White. 

Two other books may join them soon. My older grandson has already suggested we review Antoinette Portis’s books about aliens Yelfred and Omek, frints since they were little blobbies: Best Frints in the Whole Universe and Best Frints in Skrool. When we do, we’ll no doubt spend minutes enthusiastically talking about “play[ing] eye ball in the peedle pit.”