Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How a Little Boy Came to Love Books

Super Boy has always loved our read aloud time. Not so much for the books but for the cuddle time. At 6-years old he still loves nothing better than to snuggle and love with his mother. Dad won't do, big sisters won't do, only Mama. Words have never been his primary goal in asking for a read aloud. They were only a distraction, a way to get every second of lovin' possible out of his mother. In fact, he's never even been one to choose the book for reading time -- he's always left that to siblings or to me.

Then came Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Those rats, I think, changed his life forever.

The second he'd wake up in the morning he'd start begging for it. In the morning! When he gets a free hour of cuddling anyway. As soon as lunch was over, "MOM! Read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh!" As soon as dinner was over, "MOM! Read!" At bedtime, again free lovin' time anyway, "Mom! Rats! Now! Please!"

And the cool thing? As soon as we finished, he couldn't wait to pick out a new book. Yeah, he actually cared about the content, about the words. After much discussion and consideration, Redwall was decided upon.

There are a lot of words in Redwall, but he's lovin' it, even if the rats aren't the good guys this time around. Perhaps I should change this blog post title to, "How Rats Changed a Boy's Life."

3 comments:

Simple Faith and Life said...

Cool story, Maureen! :)

And can you imagine if he had to wait to read until he was able to read the interesting books to himself? With some, I think that way never happens.

That "reading to" and cuddling are so important, aren't they?

Sherry Gann said...

This is a beautiful post. :)

Maureen said...

Thank you!