I was listening to the radio this morning, and one of the guests talked about how important reading to your children is. By the end of the segment, I remembered. It was important to me as I was growing up, and instilled in me a desire to read.
Mothers and fathers who read to their children will find that their children are more well-rounded and kind to each other. Not only that, they will get to sleep more easily and will sleep better. Children who are read to have less fear and greater optimism.
It took me a while to think back, but I remember when my mom (and every once in a while my dad--about the same as it is in our household now) would read me stories. It had almost escaped my memory, but now that I think back about it, it brings back fond memories.
I remember some of those stories even now. Here are my favorites.
- Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
- The Sneetches (along with The Zax, the Pale Green Pants, and Too Many Daves - Dr. Seuss
- Are You My Mother? - P.D. Eastman
- The story about the little boy who fed his gold fish too much, so it kept growing until it fill their swimming pool, and the pet shop owner had to come make it small again
- The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
- Go, Dog, Go! - P.D. Eastman
- Sam and the Firefly - P.D. Eastman
- Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
- Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
- Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
My daughter loves one called Shut the Door!. We revel in many of the Dr. Seuss books, but we have literally hundreds of children's books, so we have a broad variety.
ReplyDeleteWhen my oldest children were younger, we advanced to the Narnia series, A Wrinkle In Time (and other Madeline L'Engle books), and the Hobbit, among other things.
When I returned to grad school, much of my time for reading to kids went out the window. In recent years I've been able to read more with the youngest.
I had lots of "favorites" as a child, but the ones that come to mind immediately are a few Dr. Seuss titles — Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who, Fox in Socks — along with Robert McCloskey's Make Way For Ducklings and Blueberries For Sal.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter has a shelf full of books, and she loves to get more from the library, so it's hard to guess in advance what story she's likely to request before bed on any given night (although she was, at one point, able to recite the Horton books from memory). Mostly she just wants to make sure that she gets her story — any story — before she goes to bed.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteNarnia is something I didn't know as a child, but we and our children love them now. Same with the L'Engle books.
Gary,
How could I have forgotten about Horton?! Thanks for reminding me of another good memory.
Something that was also somewhat of a favorite when I was a kid, and my wife loved them, as we and our kids all do now, is anything by Bill Peet.
I remember my mom reading stories to us, but more memorable, my dad telling stories. He always had a twist on fairy tales. For example, he would tell Hansel and Grettle, but the dad was a lumberjack and drove a big dump truck to save the day. He put twists like that on all his stories (he is a fisherman:)) Anyway, one thing I do know, and I don't have any kids of my own but see it in my young cousins, is that when you do read to them, they want to try to read it themselves. It inspires them to learn. I was reading Dr. Suess in kindergarten, when some kids barely knew the alphabet. It wasn't because I was necessarily smarter than other kids, but my parents read to me, which made me want to read. RU, you mentioned some good novels for older kids. I don't know why, but I didn't like to read as much when I was older, I could probably count on both hands how many books I read after middle school. Now I read a lot more though. Thanks to Frank this time.
ReplyDelete...thanks to having a lot of free time in Habbaniyah! ;-)
ReplyDeleteSome that I thought of are: "It's Not Easy Being a Bunny" by Marilyn Sadler and "Because a Little Bug Went Ker-choo" by Rosetta Stone and Michael Frith. I also loved many of the peoms by Shel Silverstin in "Where the Side Walk Ends." Finally, I have to at least give Richard Scarry a note because I still love his books.
ReplyDeleteShel Silverstein was one that I got into a bit, but Richard Scarry--he was awesome as well. We still get some of his books to read to our kids.
ReplyDeleteMy kids love "The Mystery Stories of Harris Burdick" -
ReplyDeleteand Narnia has been a hit around here, too.
Recently, my 14 year old son and I read "To Kill A Mockingbird" (he had to read it in English class) and that experience has inspired many thought provoking conversations with him.
To Kill a Mockingbird was one I remember from high school. I still remember details. Perhaps most poignantly that people are seldom quite as scary as we thought they were once we meet them and get to know them.
ReplyDeleteYes!! Particularly, Utah Democrats! < grins >
ReplyDelete(Of course, I'm referring to the action over at Derek's blog this weekend. My comments are mostly directed at that conversation, which gave me a headache.)
I don't know if you saw my comments there, but I seriously can't imagine that there are people who believe that dogmatically. Color me naive...
ReplyDelete