Reading to Kids

Is there anything better than reading to kids? Walking behind waterfalls ispretty cool, and I do love chocolate. But really, reading to kids is right up there in my favorite things to do. Kids are so responsive, so eager, and so easy to please. And I love doing all the funny voices; I am a theatre teacher, after all.

I am so excited right now because my son is about to turn four, and we have recently opened a new chapter in his reading life. We're reading chapter books. Some of them don't have pictures for at least six pages. And he is totally okay with this! He's actually loving it.

When I asked him if he missed reading books with more pictures, he said, "It's okay because I see the pictures in my head."

We started on the Lighthouse Family series and have moved on to the Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. We'll be reading those books for a while. Today, we began Little House in the Big Woods. Of course, now Alexander wants to find a hollow log and put a roof on it so we can smoke the deer meat we get when we go hunting.

I'm so excited to read all the books I loved as a kid. I'm thinking we'll get to Pippi Longstockings soon, and the Wizard of Oz should be fun.

What I want to know is...What books do you love reading to your kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews/neighbors/etc? And what books did you love having read to you when you were a kid?

Books to Treasure

I have a new baby and a three year old. (And there's my wonderful husband, too.) They're the first grandchildren on both sides of the family, so they're getting spoiled with way too many toys. I've started telling people that if they absolutely must buy things for my kids (and sometimes you just gotta), they should get books.

But there are a lot of not-so-great books out there, ones that I get sick of reading. What can I say? I'm picky about my children's literature.

So, I'm creating a list of books I want my children to have, books I loved as a child, books they will treasure for years, books they will save for their own children.

There are the picture books: Goodnight Moon, Blueberries for Sal, Where the Wild Things Are.

And then there are ones for as they get older. Beautiful, illustrated, hardcover editions of Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, the Chronicles of Narnia, the stories of Hans Christian Anderson, and on up through Beverly Cleary, Charlotte's Web, A Little Princess, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Oh, the list goes on and on. But I need help. Which books would top your list? Quick, before we get another toy that makes horrid bleeping noises. We need more books!

Renewed by Books

There are some serious gaps in my children's literature education. That's probably because until a year ago I hadn't read any children's lit since I was a child. Now I'm rediscoving the kind of books that got me excited to read in the first place, that shaped my love of words and made me want to tell my own stories.

I just started reading the Secret Garden. (I told you there were serious gaps.) Already I love it. I love this poor disagreeable girl who doesn't make you feel sorry for her but makes you want to see her grow. It's the perfect set-up for what has to happen later. We know she'll find the secret garden. We know she'll make some friends. We know that she'll learn to be human. We keep reading to find out how.

Before starting this book, I had drafted a blog post about what a snob I am about good writing and how I haven't been wowed by a book in a long time. It was a rather jaded and cynical post. I'm glad I never finished it. Because now I'm renewing my faith in the beauty of a simply story and the magic a good writer can conjure with the right combination of words.

Unlike many of the fast-paced adventure stories I've read lately, I want to read this slowly and savor every word.

Next on my reading list: A Little Princess and Bridge to Terabithia

More on Character

One question that comes to mind with all this talk about character is: Are the standards for mc likability different in children's fiction or when the mc is a child?

Even with a child we probably won't tolerate whininess or undue stupidity. But as far as character arc goes, aren't most stories about children coming of age stories in some sense or another? The character growth often seems pretty clear, or clearer than with adult characters. Children can't help growing from new experiences. It's what they're built to do.

Adults seem to have to be dragged into it kicking and screaming. And that's the set-up for the reluctant hero. (I'm a sucker for a good reluctant hero.)

Really, my question is: Do we want anything different from our child mc's than our adult mc's?

In some ways I feel our child mc's have a harder time than adult ones. They have to act like children in order to be believable, but they also have to delve into adult problems, concepts and philosophies in order to be interesting to an adult audience (which we also want from our children's literature).

And one more question: Who are your favorite child characters?

I'll start. I love Scout. And as a kid, I especially loved Kate from the Good Master.

Fantastic Diaries

Yesterday I was in Den Haag again for a reading and talk with Leila Rasheed, the author of Chips, Beans and Limousines and its sequal, Socks, Shocks and Secrets. The books are about the fantastic diaries of Bathsheba Clarice de Trop, whose super-starry world might not be all that it seems. The third book will be out soon.

Leila read selections from her books--very funny, sweet, and real--then talked a bit about her path to publication, which is a complicated story. But she got there eventually, and her books are lovely. Check them out!

Jip en Janneke

I just started reading a book of Dutch children’s stories – in Dutch – called Jip en Janneke. It’s at my reading level with enough pictures to keep the pages turning. Every Dutch child growing up in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s knows this book. They read it the way I read Pippi Longstocking, Frog and Toad, Winnie-the-Pooh, and later the Ramona books.

It’s a chapter book and I’ve only read about five of the stories, but they are so simple and delightful. In one story, Jip and Janneke must carry a basket of apples to opa (grandpa). On the way they argue about which apples taste better, red or green. Of course they must find out, so they sit down and take little bites out of each apple to determine which are best. When they arrive at opa’s they are scared to give him the basket of bitten apples. But opa says they must be tastier with a bite taken out and they all sit down and eat them together.

In another story, Jip goes to meet Janneke’s new baby cousin. He leans over the bassinette and remarks that she looks like a little piglet. Janneke’s aunt asks if Jip would like to have a baby cousin of his own. He says, no, he’d rather have a real piglet. Besides, he already has a cousin who is six and doesn’t look like a piglet. Janneke gets mad and runs off. Jip goes after her and says that her baby cousin is a sweet piglet.

I love these stories! And because I’m reading them like I read my first books in English – not quite knowing all the words or grasping the finer details but wanting to read them over and over again anyway – it takes me back to that time when all stories were new and magical and every book an undiscovered adventure waiting for me.

And the most exciting part is that not only do I get to revisit my own childhood, but I also get to share it all with my son, who is almost two and LOVES books – Dutch, English, modern and classic.

So what books take you back?