Thursday, November 18, 2010

Sharing a little childhood

I've been having a proud mom moment these days.  Those who know me know I'm a voracious reader.  My dream job when I was 9 was to become a children's librarian.  (I didn't, I'm a teacher).  We all have something in our childhood past that we want to share with our kids.  For me, that's Disneyland (we haven't gone yet) and certain books. I know, books.  I have such fond memories of books.  Not picture books, but kid novels.  I've been looking forward to the day when one of my kids would share a love of these books with me, and it's happening!
My oldest child is 6.  He too loves books.  This past summer we read through our first chapter book together (James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl).  He loved it.  He wanted to read Stuart Little next as he loved that movie, but we have yet to find a copy. So I put off getting another chapter book as he settled into grade one and this year's hockey season.  Then a couple of weeks ago I went looking for books for my kids at the library with my younger son and daughter while the older one was at school.  My eyes fell onto the shelf where the Beverly Cleary books are.  Beverly Cleary!  Was it possible?  Could one of my kids be ready to share in a love of Beverly Cleary?  I picked Ribsy, the tale of Henry Huggins dog who gets lost at the shopping mall and has all sorts of adventures trying to get back home.  The verdict?  He loved it.  We would read half a chapter or a chapter a night before bed.  Finally he said to me, Mom, I just want to keep reading, so we spent a good hour on the couch as I finished reading the book to him.  And he wants more.  He was so excited when I told him that there was a whole series of Henry Huggins books.  This week we brought another one home (Henry Huggins, the first in the series).  It's funny because I didn't think about Beverly Cleary to share with my sons, I had the Ramona books in mind to share with my daughter when she got big enough.  I've discovered that the Henry Huggins books were the first written by Beverly Cleary who was a librarian at the time she wrote them.  The boys at her library were looking for books about boys like them so Henry Huggins was her response.  The first one was published in 1950 and they hold up well.
So there's my mom moment of the week.  Sharing books of my childhood with my son.  What kinds of things are you looking forward to sharing with your kids?

3 comments:

  1. We're on the last book of the Ramona series! We're all loving them so much! My daughter asked when Beverly Cleary is coming out with her next book. It was hard to tell her that Beverly is probably long retired by now!

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  2. She's 94! Her last book came out 11 years ago, which is still pretty fantastic :o)

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  3. I can't wait until Lochlan is old enough for me to read to him. He barely sits through stories now, I hope that changes.

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