It is such a great feeling to see your son excited about a new book -- especially one that does not involve any "licensed characters" and has not even been made into a movie.
Yesterday, my kindergarten student came home with the book "George's Secret Key to the Universe," copies of which were being sold at his school.
I had been a little reluctant to send him to school with 15 bucks, because 1) I feared he would lose the money, 2)the book is really for older kids, 3) I am trying to encourage him to use the library and 4)the book is written by Stephen Hawking,(along with his daughter.)I can not understand Stephen Hawking's most famous work, A Brief History of Time, and while I'm no genius, I do have more than a half a year of kindergarten under my belt.
Nevertheless, in a moment of weakness, I sent in the cash. It turns out to be have been money well spent!
I can not yet vouch for the book as a work of literature or even science. It's gotten some nice reviews. I'm fairly confident that it will work on some level. But last night, we read only the first chapter. George has not yet even met the man who is going to teach him about space, including -- the cover says -- all the latest information on black holes. The key to the universe is, I'm guessing, many pages from where we are now.
But I would pay 15 bucks any day to see the look on my son's face when he showed it to me. He said that when he first heard about this book at a school assembly, he thought "it was just going to be an ordinary book." He said he thought it would be short and like the other books kindergarten kids have their parents read to them. "But as soon as I held it in my hands," he said, "I saw that it was totally awesome."
When it came to be rest time, he laid on his mat and turned through ever page and just in telling me about it, he was quivering with excitement over the line drawings of adventure and the full color photos of space.
My husband noted wryly, "So I guess you CAN judge a book by its cover." (Well, that and its pictures!)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Boy reads, makes mom a little sad
I never imagined this, but the first time my son read a page of a book to me -- really read a book he had not heard before -- I almost cried.
I want my kids to be readers. I am devoted myself as a parent to that more than any single thing other than, perhaps, simple safety. If I want anything for my kids, I want them to enjoy reading and to be good at it.
So why did my heart clutch a little when he tentatively -- but with appropriate intonation of questions and exclamations -- read me a simple page of one of the Frog and Toad books?
It's no surprise really. The first step a baby takes is, after all, their first step toward walking away from you. And it's the same with the first word they read. Our favorite part of the day is reading books at bedtime and there will come time, not too long from now, when my son will tell me to go away so he can read all by himself. For one tender moment, I regretted that. And I regretted every time that I did not treasure bedtime reading enough -- the nights when I thought I could not get through another Thomas the Tank Engine book, the evenings when I wished The Color Kittens would paint themselves into a corner and never come out.
I also thought about how my ability to shield my son from the world's sadness and ugliness was diminished. It was just a few months ago, when the bridge fell in Minnesota, that my family was watching the TV coverage in horrified silence. My son wondered into the room and asked about it and my father-in-law told him that a bridge fell down and then added the easy lie that parents are so inclined toward. "The people in those cars," my father-in-law said, "sure had to swim quick to shore."
My husband and I don't know if that is the right thing to do exactly, but it is what we do -- more often than not. But we won't be doing that for long. He can see the death count crawl across the screen as well as anyone.
So that's why my heart clutched, but then I looked at his face -- joyous and free. And I said "hurrah!" And I really meant it.
I want my kids to be readers. I am devoted myself as a parent to that more than any single thing other than, perhaps, simple safety. If I want anything for my kids, I want them to enjoy reading and to be good at it.
So why did my heart clutch a little when he tentatively -- but with appropriate intonation of questions and exclamations -- read me a simple page of one of the Frog and Toad books?
It's no surprise really. The first step a baby takes is, after all, their first step toward walking away from you. And it's the same with the first word they read. Our favorite part of the day is reading books at bedtime and there will come time, not too long from now, when my son will tell me to go away so he can read all by himself. For one tender moment, I regretted that. And I regretted every time that I did not treasure bedtime reading enough -- the nights when I thought I could not get through another Thomas the Tank Engine book, the evenings when I wished The Color Kittens would paint themselves into a corner and never come out.
I also thought about how my ability to shield my son from the world's sadness and ugliness was diminished. It was just a few months ago, when the bridge fell in Minnesota, that my family was watching the TV coverage in horrified silence. My son wondered into the room and asked about it and my father-in-law told him that a bridge fell down and then added the easy lie that parents are so inclined toward. "The people in those cars," my father-in-law said, "sure had to swim quick to shore."
My husband and I don't know if that is the right thing to do exactly, but it is what we do -- more often than not. But we won't be doing that for long. He can see the death count crawl across the screen as well as anyone.
So that's why my heart clutched, but then I looked at his face -- joyous and free. And I said "hurrah!" And I really meant it.
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