Raise a Reader

I am trying so hard to raise readers. So hard.

I switched, a few months ago, to reading longer books at bedtime. Buh Bye, Bellybutton book! (ok, we still read those to MasterP, but follow with a few pages of the chapter book for MlleL. She's so tremendously impatient that I'm trying to train her to slow down and listen.)

We've worked our way through Pooh (the adventures of and further adventures....) and are starting on the Moomintroll books http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomintroll. (I know, right? You've probably never heard of them. I'm not sure why I have, only that Mrs. Maiden loved them - she had been in Sweden as a young person and was taken. We had as many as she could find, and as a weird result - no childhood complete without Moomins - I might also have a bunch as well as a result of an ongoing relationship with rare book sellers in far away places. Or something like that. I've just done a Google image search for little My, and am shocked to find the following they have, apparently, there are plays and maybe a show? [if so, why does it take a rare book seller to get them? Just wondering.] Swedes. I do have to admit, tho, that I am now wishing for Little My paraphernalia. In case you're considering gift shopping or anything like that.)

I've talked MlleL into them by explaining that she looks just like Little My. And she does. Nevermind that that was MY nickname as a child. Or that Big Brother sometimes still calls me that.) Little House is next. We got the box set when Mrs. Maiden came up last time.

(Me: YAY BOOKS!!! Kids: Where are the toys, Nanny?)

Some nights are an exercise in more patience than I can muster, when MasterP wants me to stop reading the long story, stop, stop, stop, and asks at every sentence something unrelated to what is happening. Mama. Mama.... MAMA! What. I love you. Excellent. Thanks for that. Love you too. As I was saying. MAMA! Yep? Will you give me a hug? Yes. Absolutely. When I'm done with the story, just like every night. MAMA!! Do you like my car? (and..... I'm done. Exactly as he had hoped.)

Some nights, they both settle in, and have a listen while I read several pages. These moments are my favourite. I remember my mother reading these books to me when I was their age, Mindy and I in the bed together (I remember Mindy in the cradle, actually, as reading was going on, and then later the blue crib, in the big brass bed, and finally on our own...) I remember big brother creeping down the hall to settle outside of our door to hear the story...

She sat in the rocking chair and worked her way through Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, Laura Ingalls Wilder, E.B. White, Louisa May Alcott, L.M. Montgomery, Frances Hodgson Burnett (the Secret Garden AND the Little Princess), Charlotte and Elizabeth Bronte, Jane Austen, and quite a bit of Dickens. She even got through the first several chapters of Great Ex (to the cemetery scene) before she closed the book and told us if we wanted to know how it ended we should read it ourselves. (Isn't that enough, Mr. Maiden yelled up the stairs, for Christ' sake, the kids are teenagers!)

I know MlleL likes it, because every night at bedtime, our book appears on the foot of her bed. But I'm never sure if she's really listening. I'm not sure if she gets the story quite yet.

Until this weekend, when she was explaining to me how she managed to get MasterP to go to sleep for his nap.

"I pretended I was reading him a long and boring story, and told him to pretend to go to sleep while he listened to it, and he did." (Uh Oh.) Well, what kind of long and boring story, I asked?

"You know, like how Owl told the long and boring story about his uncle and Pooh had to listen with his eyes closed and then Owl's house fell over. Like that."

HOORAY!!!!