Read All About It!

Oh, the joys of reading!  Nothing better than sitting down with a good book quietly and imbibing its contents.  Actually, there IS something better, in our minds, and that is sitting down with our grandchildren, our little ones, and reading books to THEM.

Helping your children to enjoy the art of reading is such a gift.  I know of mothers who start reading to their little ones before they are born.  What a great foundation that is!  Once they are here, it is such a lovely past time to sit, cozied up, and read a fun story.

When my middle daughter, Carrie,  was about 3 or 4 , I will never forget the impact a book had on her…..and me.  It was a book from a Children’s Book Club we had joined.  My three girls were always thrilled when a new book arrived and couldn’t wait to hear the newest story that had come to “live” on our bookshelves.  The little unassuming book that was about to reveal a great lesson to me was Noisy Nora.  We had just finished reading a chapter of Little House on the Prairie, which we were working our way through a chapter at a time. It was nap time when the postman showed up at the door and there was a package that the girls instantly recognized as a new book.  They could hardly stand the excitement so we opened the package and since it was a short
book, everyone got comfortable awaiting this new story, an extra treat before naps.  I proceeded to read all about this little mouse,Nora, who was a middle child with an older sister and a baby sibling (which in her case happened to be a brother).  Page after page found Nora in some sort of trouble or feeling in the way. She was neither the accomplished older child or the helpless little baby.  Nora just seemed to be a bit noisy and often in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Gratefully the story didn’t leave Nora in this awful predicament.  At the books end, she knew she was loved and appreciated for who she was. But as I finished reading and turned to give kisses and tuck my three little ones in for their naps, I couldn’t help noticing that Carrie’s eyes were welled up with tears about to spill out on those rosy cheeks of hers.  “Carrie, what’s wrong?” I asked, honestly having no clue as to why she had clouded over so.  My sweet and adorable little three year old looked up at me with those sad eyes and said “Mommy, I’m Nora!”  She had totally identified with the book’s character of the middle child that was neither the best at everything as her older sibling nor the bouncy sweet baby that was praised for every new accomplishment .  In an instant this simple little story book had opened my eyes to my child’s feelings as the “middle child” of our family.  Feelings that I was absolutely unaware of and the book had given her the voice to tell me about.

Now obviously not every book will have that impact on you or the children you are reading to, but you never know when something you read to them will help them and you understand each other better.  There are so many fun books for children, of all ages. Some books will enlarge your and your child’s imagination.

Some will make you laugh as in the case of Shel Silverstein’s wonderful book of poems, where The Sidewalk Ends,

some will make you ponder the bigger mysteries of life and faith as in The Chronicles of Narnia

And some will just simply use a group of barnyard animals to teach you that everyone is special in his or her own way and bring you and your child hours of delight.

There is a reason they are called classics……

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they are good year after year, generation after generation.  If you haven’t read them in a while, now is a good time to start, whether it be with your child, your grandchild or the young child of a friend or neighbor.  You will both be the richer for it and will most certainlty know more love, more joy and much, much more abundant living.