After a week spent mostly indoors, confined to the house with both kids in various stages of misery thanks the to latest installment of illness around here--hand-foot-mouth disease (no, it's not a cow malady, though it sounds like one)--it comforts me to know that I was planning to write about other than "where we been, what we done" anyway. Because we didn't do a whole lot this week besides hang out in our pajamas all day (some days), go for the occasional bike ride around the block, draw with crayons, markers, pastels, and pencils, build with medieval-themed legos, play with last-year's half-dried play-doh, and listen (repeatedly) to Teacher Amy's renditions of "Mr.Sun" and "Down by the Riverside" while twirling with scarves or dancing in each other's arms.
Today we finally ventured a bit further out, catching the train to Menlo Park (Raya's first ride on the train!), where we all had breakfast and hung out at that bastion of bookishness called
Kepler's.
Our house overflows with children's books, but we don't own (too) many of these because 1) they are generally expensive and 2) we do not have space for the hundreds that we'd like to own. Still, when we make the regular pilgrimage to a bookstore like Kepler's (or Linden Tree in Los Altos) we feel it our duty as parents and citizens to support the artists who create children's literature, as well as to prolong the existence of places where one can actually
leaf through said books before plunking down the the cash. So, while the kids happily played trains in the children's section today (or climbed atop random pieces of furniture, above), I scoured the shelves for hidden treasures and came away with this gem, which has to have some of the most exquisite drawings that I have ever seen in a children's book.
The Raft by Jim LaMarche is the story of a boy's summer spent with his grandma on a river in the mountains, and it is a story of overcoming boredom, discovering creativity, and establishing intimacy by spending time-- lots of it--in nature. Sava listened intently while we read the book for bed tonight, sitting up at one point so that he could examine the beautiful pictures more closely, but we won't know the verdict of whether he liked it or not until he asks (or doesn't) to have it read again tomorrow. If he doesn't, I am taking it to my room and putting it on my night stand to lull me to sleep for the next few weeks.
In the last few months, I've lapsed in my commitment to chronicle here the experience of reading and growing with my kids, and I have no better excuse than that I've felt a bit uncertain about how to handle the sudden and unplanned transition Sava seemed to make from picture books to chapter books. For a couple of months, we effortlessly gave up on picture books, as we devoured one chapter book after another--
Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte's Web, Pippi Longstocking, James and the Giant Peach, Stuart Little, The Chalk Box Kid, and, most recently,
Ramona the Pest, which Sava loved--but the change was neither premeditated nor very meaningful, in retrospect. I think we found ourselves awe-struck by the idea of our first-born experiencing books without pictures for the first time and, since he seemed to enjoy those books, we didn't know how to backpedal to picture books, and probably feared that if we backpedaled he would suddenly lose the ability to listen to complex, sophisticated language without the aid of images. We did go back to old (and owned) classics like
Make Way for Ducklings or
Many Moons, and we went through a brief
Henry and Mudge phase, mostly for the sake of reading something with large enough font that Sava could sight-read if he wished, and we read the translations of two lovely Japanese books sent to us by a Bulgarian friend in Tokyo,
The Last Kappa of Japan and
Hachiko (both beautiful), but for the most part we stuck with the chapter books, and Rado and I took turns reading a book each with him, as opposed to what we've now resumed doing, which is alternating who reads to him each night, while the other one read and sings to Raya.
We're finding our way back to picture books, and it feels good. Really good. Not because chapter books are not wonderful, and not because this is not the place where we hope to end up some day anyway, but because there is a unique bond that pictures and words create between reader and listener, and Sava and Rado and I are not ready to give up on that bond. Since he is now the "big" child, it is easy to forget sometimes that Sava is only five-years old, and still has the enviable capacity to be thoroughly enchanted by images, which do not detract from but add to his experience of words. Since he watches no television at all, his sensitivity to images seems especially keen, and he delights in the beautiful illustrations (and lovely language, as it happens) of books like
Shirley Hughes' Alfie series, of which the latest favorite, read over and over in the course of the last week, is
The Birthday Surprise (and we recommend enthusiastically
The Big Alfie Out of Doors Book, too
). He's just discovered
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and
Aunt Minnie McGranahan, both of which reduce him to fits of giggles.
Our return to picture books from the brief foray into chapter books only was propelled by a German wordless picture book,
In the Town, All Year Round, which we borrowed from the library on the strength of a stranger's recommendation, and which for a couple of weeks became the only book Sava wanted to "read" for both quiet time and bedtime (and after two weeks, we finally got the message that the kid must be starved for pictures...duh). It is, in my humble opinion, a much lovelier variation on the Richard Scarry books, with scenes from the same town rendered for the four different seasons, and various characters and story lines getting elaborated and developed with so many details that an observant child can keep busy for hours. We're buying the book for the next big holiday, as it is the equivalent of a great toy that keeps giving and continues to grow with age. Rado and I like it as much as Sava does (and we don't mind the occasional people smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, or breastfeeding, to which some priggish Amazon reviewers object--sigh).
*****
As for the girl, her tastes continue to evolve mainly along the lines of Mother Goose (Clare Beaton's and Ruth Sanderson's versions are the current favorites). Where Sava couldn't sit through more than a single Mother Goose rhyme at this age (but devoured every Byron Barton and Lois Lenski that his little hands could hold), Raya can listen enchanted for up to thirty or forty minutes of Mother Goose at bedtime, and often will ask us to read a particular rhyme over and over and over again until, I am sure, she has it completely memorized. She wakes up every morning now singing "Twinkle twinkle little star" (appropriately, since stars are still twinkling at 5.50 am) or "Frere Jacques," and we spend much of our days either reciting rhymes or singing them or both. I never in my oddest dreams could have imagined that, as an adult, I would be spending half of my waking hours singing, dancing, or warling to a beat. Raya revels in rhythmic language as much as any human being could, and I admit that it gives me the deepest appreciation of life to share moments of musical and poetic language with her. Even at the end of an exhausting day, a wacky request from her to repeat twelve times a single line (I kid you not) moves me to the core and makes me want to dance. (Besides rhymes and songs, she likes nothing better than for me to tell her, over and over and
over again, what we have done that day; she'll make me repeat as many times as I can without annoying her brother and father how I went to the hairdresser while she and dad and Sava hung out at Michael's across the street, where they looked at baubles, tried to "put on" a ceramic vase in the shape of a boot, and changed a diaper on the floor of the men's restroom because, apparently, men's restrooms do not have changing tables...and she'll laugh delightedly at the end of each identical account.)
modeling Mr. Potato Head's glasses
Besides Mother Goose, she is slowly starting to discover that enchantress of toddler language
Sandra Boynton (Belly Button Book! was Sava's all-time favorite), and she is a great lover of the
Annie Kubler series of books based on popular kids' songs. Raya especially enjoys Kubler's rendition of
Row Row Row Your Boat, and the other day she made me sing
I'm a Little Teapot about ten times before she relented and allowed us to leave the library. The Kubler books are great for music-loving toddlers, as they have large illustrations showing babies enacting the songs, often with small surprises in the lyrics.
At this point, I can barely hold back on starting to teach her English, just so I could share with her all the other wonderful literary treasures that Sava has taught us to appreciate. But I am doing my best to wait until August, when the arrival of grandpa, a Bulgarian speaker to replace my loss, and the prospect of preschool when she turns two in October, will give me a full and legitimate excuse to finally teach her the language which has been the first and last love of my life.
She is ready to be taught.
*****
In other news, as already noted, not a whole lot happened this week. We invented various ways to play together.
Spent a lot of time drawing.
Played legos.
Built trains.
And tried to find occasions to laugh, sores in mouths and all.
Here's hoping for the extinction of all viruses, and the triumph of spring and sunshine in the coming week.
Our house overflows with children's books, but we don't own (too) many of these because 1) they are generally expensive and 2) we do not have space for the hundreds that we'd like to own. Still, when we make the regular pilgrimage to a bookstore like Kepler's (or Linden Tree in Los Altos) we feel it our duty as parents and citizens to support the artists who create children's literature, as well as to prolong the existence of places where one can actually leaf through said books before plunking down the the cash. So, while the kids happily played trains in the children's section today (or climbed atop random pieces of furniture, above), I scoured the shelves for hidden treasures and came away with this gem, which has to have some of the most exquisite drawings that I have ever seen in a children's book. The Raft by Jim LaMarche is the story of a boy's summer spent with his grandma on a river in the mountains, and it is a story of overcoming boredom, discovering creativity, and establishing intimacy by spending time-- lots of it--in nature. Sava listened intently while we read the book for bed tonight, sitting up at one point so that he could examine the beautiful pictures more closely, but we won't know the verdict of whether he liked it or not until he asks (or doesn't) to have it read again tomorrow. If he doesn't, I am taking it to my room and putting it on my night stand to lull me to sleep for the next few weeks.
In the last few months, I've lapsed in my commitment to chronicle here the experience of reading and growing with my kids, and I have no better excuse than that I've felt a bit uncertain about how to handle the sudden and unplanned transition Sava seemed to make from picture books to chapter books. For a couple of months, we effortlessly gave up on picture books, as we devoured one chapter book after another--Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte's Web, Pippi Longstocking, James and the Giant Peach, Stuart Little, The Chalk Box Kid, and, most recently, Ramona the Pest, which Sava loved--but the change was neither premeditated nor very meaningful, in retrospect. I think we found ourselves awe-struck by the idea of our first-born experiencing books without pictures for the first time and, since he seemed to enjoy those books, we didn't know how to backpedal to picture books, and probably feared that if we backpedaled he would suddenly lose the ability to listen to complex, sophisticated language without the aid of images. We did go back to old (and owned) classics like Make Way for Ducklings or Many Moons, and we went through a brief Henry and Mudge phase, mostly for the sake of reading something with large enough font that Sava could sight-read if he wished, and we read the translations of two lovely Japanese books sent to us by a Bulgarian friend in Tokyo, The Last Kappa of Japan and Hachiko (both beautiful), but for the most part we stuck with the chapter books, and Rado and I took turns reading a book each with him, as opposed to what we've now resumed doing, which is alternating who reads to him each night, while the other one read and sings to Raya.
We're finding our way back to picture books, and it feels good. Really good. Not because chapter books are not wonderful, and not because this is not the place where we hope to end up some day anyway, but because there is a unique bond that pictures and words create between reader and listener, and Sava and Rado and I are not ready to give up on that bond. Since he is now the "big" child, it is easy to forget sometimes that Sava is only five-years old, and still has the enviable capacity to be thoroughly enchanted by images, which do not detract from but add to his experience of words. Since he watches no television at all, his sensitivity to images seems especially keen, and he delights in the beautiful illustrations (and lovely language, as it happens) of books like Shirley Hughes' Alfie series, of which the latest favorite, read over and over in the course of the last week, is The Birthday Surprise (and we recommend enthusiastically The Big Alfie Out of Doors Book, too). He's just discovered Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Aunt Minnie McGranahan, both of which reduce him to fits of giggles.
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