My 18-month-old son is obsessed with tractors. Or maybe he’s obsessed with the word “tractor,” because he calls anything or anyone on wheels (including, embarrassingly, people in wheelchairs) “tractor.” He knows the words “car” and “bus” and “bike” and “train.” He just likes to call them tractors.
He also gets stuck in verbal ruts, as toddlers are wont to do. He’ll fixate on a word for ten minutes at a time, saying it over and over to the point where it becomes hilarious, then slightly irritating, then a droning background noise, then hilarious again. “Bubbles. Bubbles. Bubbles. Bubbles! BUBBLES! Bubbles. Bubbles.” And so on.
But when he gets going on “tractor” his pronunciation gets a little weird. It starts out as the normal version of “tractor,” then often shifts between “tracTOR!” and “tracta,” but sometimes it sounds very much like “doctor.” One day as he was saying “Tractor. Tractor! TracTOR! Tracta. Doctor. Tractor. Doctor. TracTOR!” and his sister and I couldn’t stop giggling at him, I decided I would write a book for him called Doctor Tractor. I started to work on it yesterday and I think I’ve figured out the story.
Doctor Tractor is a country doctor who makes his house calls on an old tractor, hence the nickname (he’s a little James Herriot and a little like the old guy in The Straight Story). One day he gets a frantic call from a farmer who’s new to the area, saying “Loretta” needs help quickly. Doctor Tractor rushes over and discovers that Loretta is, in fact, a tractor. He explains to the confused farmer that he’s not a mechanic, but the farmer is too upset over Loretta to understand. But Doctor Tractor has good barnside manner and offers to take a look. Using his medical tools, he gives the tractor a check-up and somehow his first aid brings the tractor back to life — only she’s not just a tractor anymore.
What do you think of the premise? Too weird? Not weird enough?
michelle heimburger 
I look forward to reading this one! :-) Oh, and thanks for the link! <3