An Ordinary Magic
January 17th, 2008
When I was pregnant with my daughter ten years ago, I used to read Winnie the Pooh to her. I’d make all the different voices and sing the little songs, and I’m quite convinced that not only could she hear me, but she enjoyed being sung and cooed to. Babies certainly recognize voices even in utero, and I believe that my reading to her helped create an early bond between the two of us.
I don’t have tons of memories of having been read to as a child–not by family members, anyway. I’m sure my mother did read to me, as she has many stories about “that time I was reading to you…” but I must have been very small and I don’t remember. I learned to read very young and was a voracious reader, so maybe my mom just figured if I could read by myself there was no real need for her participation. Or, just as likely, perhaps she read to me frequently and I just don’t remember.
I do, however, remember two distinct times of having been read to by family. The first time was my father, who read The Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis when I must have been 8 or 9. I remember sitting in the garage with him, writing on my chalk board, and my dad came out book in hand and said, “I’d like to read this story to you.” My parents were divorced and I didn’t live with my father. In fact, I saw him very little, so any time spent with my father was precious. I don’t recall being overly excited about the idea of being read to at first, but as we got into the story I remember being spellbound, utterly captivated by the goings on in Narnia. My father brought reading to a different level. It wasn’t just a story, it was magic.
The second time was when I was in 9th grade and had been assigned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t want to read this. I mean, I really didn’t want to read it. It seemed stupid, and boring, and written for boys, and I resented that I had to read it. The more I complained, the more fed up my Aunt Yolande became until she snatched the book out of my hands and started reading it to me.
She made Jim talk in a deep, throaty, Black man’s voice. She gave Huck a southern drawl, and had him mispronounce certain words. She gave dramatic pauses and acted things out. And suddenly I was fascinated. Mark Twain became my hero, delivering me into a dreamworld I would try repeatedly throughout my life to recapture, to embark on anything like the journey Huck and Jim went on. She made me love something I had previously hated. And it was then, at 13, that I began to believe that oral storytelling was sacred.
After my daughter was born, I got out of the habit of reading to her. And my son, now 5, had never sat down with me for story time. I realized what a disservice I had done them, and decided to make the time to read to them, every day, for as long as they were interested. My little boy has a very short attention span, and truthfully,I was worried that he wouldn’t get much out of story time. But it was worth a try.
Monday evening we gathered in my daughter’s room with my beautiful copy of The Magician’s Nephew. I read the first chapter, which ends with the cliffhanger of Polly vanishing into thin air, and when I slammed the book closed, both kids jumped up. “NO! Keep reading!” they shouted. They begged and pleaded, wanting to know what happened next, but my voice was tired and I was enjoying the suspense. I promised to read more at 7pm the next day if they could tell me what happened in Chapter 1. My son, who normally can’t sit still for three minutes, told me in explicit detail what had just happened, and my heart warmed.
The next morning, 6:30 am, I sat down next to my son, resting my hand on his leg. I rubbed him gently, coaxing him to wake. His eyes opened slowly, a smile spreading slowly across his face. And as he reached out to touch my hand his first words of the morning were, “Mommy, I can’t wait for 7 oclock tonight.”
The magic of storytelling lives. I am a priestess in my own home.
Great! Reading to/with kids is really fun, good for them, good for you. I really miss having kids to read to, that’s probably why I do Librivox ;)
BTW if you want to show the younger one my Beatrix Potter readings some time I’d be delighted http://bigbible.org/children there are audio only Just So Stories there that the older one might like.
What a pleasure :) I look forward to reading to my guy too, although as yet he’s too busy learning to run and jump and hop to sit still.
Oh, I am so glad you are a practitioner of this magical art! Mostly because I love it so well myself–I became a high school English teacher in part because my own daughter is now past the age of read-aloud (though only because, at 21, she has her own apartment!).
Reading aloud and being read to are two of the great joys in life. True, not everyone is as masterful as your Aunt Yolande, but it’s such bliss to take on the voices and the personas, and watch the magic take hold of an audience yet again. Kind of like being a famous actress, but without having to join the Screen Actor’s Guild, wait tables, or live life on a diet!
And it’s great for kids, it really is. Did you know that even children’s books have vocabulary levels that are significantly higher than television or conversation? Kids who are being read to are learning so many things about the world that they can’t get any other way.
And, honestly, even as teenagers, they love it…and keep on growing through it. (I highly recommend Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook for all kinds of reasons to read aloud to kids, large and small.)
How fun to stumble upon this blog, read your story and find similarities to my own experience. My children are now 23 and 21. We all have fond memories of “Family waterbed time” when all four of us would come together each night and lay on the bed and read for an hour or two. It grew into that much time. We read so many wonderful books. It took us away from television and also gave us time to talk with each other. Both of my children have great vocabularies, are good communicators and still love to read. In their teenage years I noticed that they were able to talk with the parents of their friends. A lot of their freinds wouldn’t communicate with me or other adults. Now in their twenties they are using their communication skills in the workplace. Reading aloud to children is a great gift that will keep on giving.
How exciting to hear the testimonies of other parents who have given their children the gift of reading. At the very time my children were preschoolers, I read an article in Reader’s Digest about Barbara Bush who said the best educational thing parents can do is “Read, Read, Read.” She encouraged parents to keep reading aloud to their children even after the children learned to read. My girls, 18 and 19, still remember Tom Sawyer, all seven books of Chronicles and Narnia and the entire series of Little House on the Prairie books. Both of them love poetry. As older teens, they’ve joined me in reading the same book, then we talk about it. What fun! Thank you so much for telling your story and bringing back precious memories for me.
My little sister and I shared a room for many years, and I still remember the times when our mom came in and read the first Harry Potter book to her :)