Here is the latest update in the ongoing favorite books series…
Molly has been enjoying the classics. She went through a big Cat in the Hat phase. This one is really fun to read if you add the full dramatic flair, with silly voices and dramatic pauses. It also takes a long time to read if you do it right, so we often have to skip over the “middle bit”, i.e. the middle 1/3 of the book, since this book tends to get Molly late to bed.
Molly has also been enjoying Harry the Dirty Dog. She likes this one in particular because the book itself was Kit’s when she was a little girl. When Kit first told Molly that the book had been hers when she was small, Molly got a really surprised look on her face, sort of a “Holy s**t!” look, as Kit tells me. Molly may have been taken aback that Kit was ever a little girl. We have another, newer copy of this book too, and Molly insists that one was my book when I was little. This is actually not true, and I have told Molly that it was not my book, but Molly shrugs this news off. It was my book according to her view of the world.
Kit normally reads Molly her bedtime story, so she might have more to add. Molly also been enjoying Ladybug Girl at the Beach, which was actually a gift to Claire from her aunt Betsy. Claire read it once or twice and moved on, but Molly really loves this story about a girl playing around at the beach with her dog and family and conquering her fear of the water.
Claire has been mostly checking out non-fiction animal books from the school library. We covered lions for a while, thanks to the movie The Lion King, which made lions look cute and fun. But Claire has turned away from lions a bit lately after realizing that they are really more ferocious and dangerous than cute. “I don’t like lions any more. They’re mean and gross.”, I think she said. This realization came after she saw a picture of a lion holding a dead, limp animal in its bloody mouth. Claire has since then been focusing on dolphins, which really are cute and sweet. They save people’s lives and fight sharks, which really is cool.
We also try to get Claire to read her own lithe books that she takes home from school as reading assignments. Claire is usually too tired to read on her own, though, and just can’t seem to focus at the late hour right before bed. So we are trying to find another time for her to read to us, but it is tough to find the time on a weekday.
Recently, Claire has come up with a new idea for bedtime stories. Instead of a story, she said the other night, “why don’t we just cuddle and talk for a while?” Sure, why not? The whole idea is just to help her relax and top off the day before going to bed. The first night she said, “What should we talk about? Moats?” We had been talking about moats, her idea, for a few days. We had mostly exhausted the topic, but we quickly reviewed our knowledge of moats, and then went on to Q&A. We covered each other’s favorite colors and a couple of other basics. Among other things, we covered Claire’s latest career plans.
Besides Q&A, Claire decided that we should make up stories to tell each other. Each night she would make up a story such as “Elizabeth and the magic sock” or “Lilly and the magic jellybean”. These stories are cute but tend to ramble on and go in circles for quite a while, either because she cannot figure out how to end the story or because she is trying to put off bedtime, or probably a little bit of both. (Claire is also writing and illustrating a book called “Candy Land”, or “Kandi Land” as she has written it with her growing writing skills.) After Claire’s story, Kit or I have to make up a story. Mine usually end up with pirates on a ship, or talking food, for some reason. And mine tend to ramble on too because it’s actually really hard to find a good conclusion to a story that you’re just making up on the spot. Really hard. I kind of want to go back to reading someone else’s stories!
McG Kids 