Thinking (about reading) out loud...

When I think about reading aloud to children, I can't help but remember the books that I read over and over and over to my children. They come floating back like a pleasant dream and I probably can remember passages from them all. Were some of them the mainstream popular books like Goodnight Moon, Mother Goose Rhymes or any and all of the Disney stories? Yes, they were. But they also included gems that we found at Goodwill book sales (The Flying Chair), or by subscribing to the free books displayed in pediatrician's offices (Al Perkins' Hand, Hand Fingers, Thumb), or finding little-known books written by popular writers like Tommie de Paola (Pancakes for Breakfast). I am sure I read that one alone hundreds of times - and it has no words!

My greatest negotiating skills came into play at bedtime - determining how many books we would read before it was time to turn out the lights. On any given night, the children would select 7 or 8, I would counter with 2 and we would end up somewhere around 3 or 4. As any parent knows, it can be hard "not" to read to an eager child who struggles with a tower of books that he or she wants you to read. My parenting guilt often overrode my desire to tuck them in, turn out the light and take some "me" time. I almost always succumbed to nestling in between two freshly scrubbed children, poised with blankies and thumbs, ready for reading. It still makes me smile to remember one of my son's first two-word sentences..."read book." And this past summer, as I helped him unpack his dozens of boxes of books in his new apartment before he had to go buy yet another bookcase, I knew that spending five more minutes, reading "just one more" book paid off like I never could have imagined!