I don't remember my parents reading to me. I don't know how I got my love of books, probably because they didn't make fun of me [You, reading this book, you suck!]. But my parents didn't read to me. I just don't think it was done very much then.
I remember, though, maybe I had a sleepover at the girl's house, maybe I was just there really late, but I was at the girl-down-the-street's house and her mom read to us. We climbed up on her bed and she read us a chapter from The Hobbit. It made me want to read it and I started it a year or two later. I never forgot how exciting it was to be read to.
I read to Kitten as much as she wants, and she wants to do it quite a bit. It makes me pretty happy that she likes books and that they make books that are so good.
Tails Are Not for Pulling
Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball
Jamberry
I Love You Stinky Face
Tails
But I do remember this: I had more books than I could read as a kid. I had my mom's books from when she was little, books that included Treasure Island and compilations of stories like the Three Billy Goats Gruff. And she signed us up for a book-a-month club, or something like that, because I had a lot of books from the same company and I think they came in the mail. This is where I got my love of Encyclopedia Brown and Cam Jansen. We weren't rich, or even middle class at the time, and I don't know why she chose to spend the money on my books. She always let me pick books from the book ordering thing at school, too, and I got to read Bunnicula and The Celery Stalks at Midnight. As a tween, I got several of the (now defunct) Canby Hall series books.
My dad let me read his Hobbit and Trilogy, even though I lost one of his books. My mom would not let me read her book on demonic possession, but did let me obsess over the creepy pictures in The Lincoln Conspiracy.
Even though I wish I would have been read to, it clearly hasn't stunted my desire to read or learn. And although my parents didn't know to read to me, or weren't really interested, I had more books than most kids, even with our extremely limited funds.
So you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.
6 comments:
I don't remember my parents (or any of my older siblings) reading to me, but then again, I don't remember a LOT of things...
I don't really remember it either, although we certainly had plenty of books around. Come to think of it, I don't remember when I couldn't read things for myself, and considering my Mom's "if you can do it yourself, do it yourself" parenting style, that's probably I don't remember them reading to us.
I remember being read to, even after I could read to myself. However, once I was old enough to read myself, I got to start taking over chapters that were read to my little brother. I was talking to my parents recently, and while they read to me a lot, there are books that only I remember, because I read them over and over myself. So I think I remember reading even though I was often the one reading.
I was an only child until I was 5 years old, so I remember my mom reading to me very clearly. I remember her reading to my sister too, but not as clearly. I think that if parents are readers themselves, and have lots of books around it's pretty inevitable that thier kids will like to read too.
Oh yeah, and I loved Bunnicula! (they still do that book ordering thing at schools - thank goodness!)
I do recall my sister being really mad at me when she caught me reading from my brother-in-law's collection.....
Your parents didn't read to you? That surprises me for some reason. My mom read to me all the time, and she was really great about doing different funny voices and stuff, which in retrospect I realize was probably at least as much to make the 783rd reading of "Harry the Dirty Dog" slightly less mind-numbing for herself as to make it entertaining for me.
She had definitely stopped reading to me by the time I was sleepover or Hobbit age though.
Did you get read to in school? Story time was always my favorite part of the day in Kindergarten.
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