Read me like a book

Nate, Reading

Oh, am I ever tired of Richard Scarry.

Nate has asked me to read Cars and Trucks and Things That Go every night for the past few weeks. My personal opinion is that this book would be perfect for Nate to read to himself. He could spend hours poring over all the little details on every page. Unfortunately, he can’t read just yet. It’s driving me bonkers. I prefer books that have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Luckily, Richard Scarry books are so episodic and disjointed to begin with that Nate doesn’t usually notice when I skip a page, or ten, or half the book. Nighty night.

The good news is that he also likes some of my favorite books. My dad bought him a copy of Many Moons, which was always one of my favorites when I was young. Heck, it’s still one of my favorites. It was very important to me that he should love it too. Luckily for both of us, he does.

A while back, his preschool did a fairy-tale theme week, so I got out Volume I of Journeys Through Bookland. This is a leather-bound, ten-volume set that belonged to Sarah’s dad. These are real books; I had to impress upon Nate that they were very old and fragile, and that we both had to be extra careful.

That day’s theme was Jack and the Beanstalk, so I flipped through until I found it. Turns out that our version is just a bit darker than the one they read at school. For one thing, there were a lot more people who “got dead” in our version. It’s also about three times longer than his usual fare. We did make it through, but it’s not part of the regular rotation. We’ll come back to it soon enough.

I can’t wait.

2 thoughts on “Read me like a book”

  1. We never read Richard Scarry, for some reason. Probably because I never got them out of the library, and no one gave them to us.

    We read “The Little House” every night for weeks, until Gabriel – at two – could recite the *entire* book. I still had to read it to him. He did the same thing with “Katy” too. At this point, Nate has probably memorized Richard Scarry. As him to “read” it to you 😉

    The original Grimm is…well, Grim. I suppose older “versions” of fairy tales are, too, since they were published before we decided EVERYTHING must end in Happily Ever After, and EVERYONE got a second chance. Yeah, that’s SOOOOOO like life.

    I know, they’re fairy tales, but they are supposed to be instructive and insightful, in a way. I think it makes perfect sense that – according to the Grimms – the evil Queen in “Snow White” gets forced into red-hot iron shoes and “she danced and danced until she dropped down dead.”

    THE END

    G’night!

  2. No Richard Scarry here either. I do my best to avoid the Clifford display at the library, though. I still have my copy of my favorite book, “The Surprise Doll,” and enjoy sharing it with Jenny. Inspired by your post, Dave, I’ve discovered it’s back in print. I’ve ordered a fresh new copy for us to share.

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