I once knew a bright, but troubled guy who said “I love reading because I get to have a conversation with everyone who ever lived and expressed themselves through their writing.”
This article expresses to me the importance of literature in learning to know and live yourself and then the wider world. Which reminds me, I must return to reading in school, next term. Because, this.
Our Fridays have turned into a Chinese takeaway night. (Sorry for the impact this has on our town’s obesity stats.)
Monkey face loves to go in with her dad and help with the order. She’s usually got a book with her. The friendly lady behind the counter has a child who’s read some of the same books and they’ve started a little friendship.
Last week, as she was leaving the shop, MF proclaimed: “so it IS a real friendship. And all because of Wimpy Kid! Thank you, Jeff Kinney.”
A picture speaks a thousand words. Today I walked into the sitting room, suspicious as to why it was so quiet in there… Found this:
I can’t bear to even look how long it’s been since my last post. Due to overcommitment and sleeplessness, I no longer even aim to blog.
However, when I read what follows, I wanted to share this lovely message from children’s author and illustrator, Anna Dewdney, who sadly died on Saturday. I still, somehow, manage to get into my daughter’s school to read with some of the children there and I think Anna’s words sum up why I believe it’s so important, despite my clear capacity bottleneck:
“When we read with a child, we are doing so much more than teaching him to read or instilling in her a love of language,” she wrote. “We are doing something that I believe is just as powerful, and it is something that we are losing as a culture: by reading with a child, we are teaching that child to be human. When we open a book, and share our voice and imagination with a child, that child learns to see the world through someone else’s eyes.”
The monkey was poorly, yesterday and so devoured her Mr Men boxed set…
TheBen, meanwhile, has just graduated to dragging the Boden Christmas catalog around with him, squealing with delight. I know just how he feels.
Lest you think we’d forgotten you
I met up socially with my daughter’s old nursery teacher a couple of days ago. Whilst we didn’t speak much about the Monkeyface, one of the teacher’s first sentences to me was “I hear the Monkeyface is doing fantastically with her reading…” It’s true, she is.
Later that day, another friend came over to try figure something out on WordPress with me (I know, that’s funny, right… My blogging is now so intermittent I’m almost a born-again interweb-Virgin.) The two things happening on the same day made me realise, with a jolt, just how much the Monkeyface has achieved. When I think how hard it was to read to her as a baby, how difficult I found it. What a failure I felt. And then to get her to read.! Looking back, it just takes a heap of tenacity and time (which back then was In short supply!) look at her now! She’s a voracious reader, with a reading age almost double her age. Just yesterday, she read 8 books. 8! She’s 5!
Part of the difficulty with blogging is that, well we just aren’t able to read as many books with her these days – because she’s the one who wants to read! That’s insane. Well, actually, perhaps not.
I’m so jealous of her intake.
Last night, my son tried to stand – reaching past his battery-operated kingdom of toy hell – to grab a book.
Small matter, then, that he was less impressive when he got hold of it…
bookandbed 