At least once a week, I take our 4-year-old son to spend the day with my parents. We have breakfast there, play, usually do an outing to the library, a park or museum in the morning, lunch, read stories, etc. He loves going there.
Down in the basement are all of my childhood books. He’s expressed little interest in the thin, worn Scholastic paperbacks that stuff several shelves. Rather, he’s drawn to a shelf that contains our old Readers’ Digest Condensed Books series – 12 hardback volumes of Serious Literature. He likes to take one or two out, stack them on the ping pong table nearby, perhaps look at the (very few) pictures, and replace them.
Last week he started obsessing over one of them. “I want to bring this one home,” he kept repeating. “Can I take this one home?”
“Why do you want to take this one home?”
“Because I like it.”
My answer is always some variation of “No.” Someday, after all, we will bring those here.” Not that there’s any room for a 12-volume set. But last week, he wore me down. And an idea occurred to me:
“Silas, I will take this book home with us on one condition,” I said. “You must agree to let me read you one page to you every day.”
“Okay.”
I glanced at the spine, which displays the four titles contained inside. The options were not good. “Kidnapped”? For a 4-year-old? No. “Messer Marco Polo”? “Pride and Prejudice”? I don’t think so. My best bet, I thought, might be “Wind, Sand and Stars,” the 1939 memoir by French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
“Let’s go down and find one with a story you might like.”
I scanned the shelf, and my eyes finally came to rest on what seemed a good candidate: Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.”
I say “seemed.” Certainly more appealing than “Pride and Prejudice.” It is a children’s story, after all. But it’s also a disorienting one. My first encounter with it was not the book, but the Disney film: It was the first movie I saw in a theater. My mom took me, and I think she was more freaked out than I was. I don’t think he’d be ready for the film, given his viewing tastes, but the book might work for him. So we brought it home.
That first night, I actually read about two pages. I couldn’t very well leave Alice in the middle of her long flight to the center of the earth, so I pressed on so Silas could see that she did indeed have a safe landing.
The next day I queried him about the story thus far. He remembered the important points, and early in the afternoon, he asked me to keep reading.
I finished the first chapter.
He wanted me to keep reading.
I read the second chapter.
He wanted me to keep reading.
This is not what I expected, and even though (unlike Alice herself) he was open to a book with very few pictures, I found myself squirming. I’m not sure what, exactly, was eating at me. Lots of children’s books are surreal and weird, especially those with pictures. This is a kid who was demanding multiple readings of “Green Eggs and Ham” when he was two. But 30 pages of weirdness is one thing. A hundred?
I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Alice’s digressions made it difficult for me to find a rhythm and tempo. This may sound odd coming from someone who is comfortably approaching the 1,100th page of Samuel Richardson’s “Clarissa, or: A History of a Young Lady,” but I think it was not so much a matter of the text defeating him as it defeated me. I didn’t know how to read it. And with so few illustrations, there was nothing there for him to linger over.
So yesterday, we returned to the shelf in my parents’ basement. The volume with Alice went back, and I scanned the titles again. Kipling’s “Jungle Books”? No, not quite yet. I don’t want him to grow up terrified of snakes. I finally settled on “Rabbit Hill,” which I’d never heard about, but learned was also a children’s story. I explained to Silas that if he really wanted to press on with Alice, I had my own copy of the unabridged version at home.
Last night, we began reading. Knocked off three pages, although he would have sat for more. Stay tuned.
Down in the basement are all of my childhood books. He’s expressed little interest in the thin, worn Scholastic paperbacks that stuff several shelves. Rather, he’s drawn to a shelf that contains our old Readers’ Digest Condensed Books series – 12 hardback volumes of Serious Literature. He likes to take one or two out, stack them on the ping pong table nearby, perhaps look at the (very few) pictures, and replace them.
Last week he started obsessing over one of them. “I want to bring this one home,” he kept repeating. “Can I take this one home?”
“Why do you want to take this one home?”
“Because I like it.”
My answer is always some variation of “No.” Someday, after all, we will bring those here.” Not that there’s any room for a 12-volume set. But last week, he wore me down. And an idea occurred to me:
“Silas, I will take this book home with us on one condition,” I said. “You must agree to let me read you one page to you every day.”
“Okay.”
I glanced at the spine, which displays the four titles contained inside. The options were not good. “Kidnapped”? For a 4-year-old? No. “Messer Marco Polo”? “Pride and Prejudice”? I don’t think so. My best bet, I thought, might be “Wind, Sand and Stars,” the 1939 memoir by French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
“Let’s go down and find one with a story you might like.”
I scanned the shelf, and my eyes finally came to rest on what seemed a good candidate: Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.”
I say “seemed.” Certainly more appealing than “Pride and Prejudice.” It is a children’s story, after all. But it’s also a disorienting one. My first encounter with it was not the book, but the Disney film: It was the first movie I saw in a theater. My mom took me, and I think she was more freaked out than I was. I don’t think he’d be ready for the film, given his viewing tastes, but the book might work for him. So we brought it home.
That first night, I actually read about two pages. I couldn’t very well leave Alice in the middle of her long flight to the center of the earth, so I pressed on so Silas could see that she did indeed have a safe landing.
The next day I queried him about the story thus far. He remembered the important points, and early in the afternoon, he asked me to keep reading.
I finished the first chapter.
He wanted me to keep reading.
I read the second chapter.
He wanted me to keep reading.
This is not what I expected, and even though (unlike Alice herself) he was open to a book with very few pictures, I found myself squirming. I’m not sure what, exactly, was eating at me. Lots of children’s books are surreal and weird, especially those with pictures. This is a kid who was demanding multiple readings of “Green Eggs and Ham” when he was two. But 30 pages of weirdness is one thing. A hundred?
I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Alice’s digressions made it difficult for me to find a rhythm and tempo. This may sound odd coming from someone who is comfortably approaching the 1,100th page of Samuel Richardson’s “Clarissa, or: A History of a Young Lady,” but I think it was not so much a matter of the text defeating him as it defeated me. I didn’t know how to read it. And with so few illustrations, there was nothing there for him to linger over.
So yesterday, we returned to the shelf in my parents’ basement. The volume with Alice went back, and I scanned the titles again. Kipling’s “Jungle Books”? No, not quite yet. I don’t want him to grow up terrified of snakes. I finally settled on “Rabbit Hill,” which I’d never heard about, but learned was also a children’s story. I explained to Silas that if he really wanted to press on with Alice, I had my own copy of the unabridged version at home.
Last night, we began reading. Knocked off three pages, although he would have sat for more. Stay tuned.