Though we didn't read them together, they (and so many others) are nonetheless part of our shared history.
As we are reading more and more with Carolyn, I'm continually amazed by how many connections she draws between daily life and some story we've read. Countless times in a day she perks up at the mention of some word, phrase, or name and races to find the book that contains some association to that idea. We're building our own shared history in books, even now.
I've been reading Honey for a Child's Heart, by Gladys Hunt, with its annotated book lists for children birth to 14 years and can scarcely wait to delve ever deeper into the literary world as Carolyn gets older. I rather liked this quote from chapter 3:
One day our high schooler was discussing the whirlwind of destruction left behind by a couple of children visiting us. He said, "I got to thinking about how I would teach my children not to pull up wild flowers by the roots and destroy things, and then I wondered how I had learned myself. I decided I learned from books to respect the world. In C.S. Lewis's books the animals and trees have personality; in pioneer stories Indians tried to walk through the forest without breaking a twig, and settlers respected the land; in Tolkien's books, the orcs are the bad guys who leave a path of careless destruction." He shrugged his shoulders as he concluded, "You put a whole childhood of reading together, and you don't have to take a conservation course."
1 comment:
I absolutely loved that book. I have so enjoyed sharing books with Nathan, and it gets more and more fun the older he gets. Of course, I also like the fact that *I'm* the one reading to him because sometimes I can totally understand where he's coming from or what he means by something he says.
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