‘A house without books is like a room without windows’ – Heinrich Mann
I first read to E when he was still a bump. At a few months old we began reading bedtime stories after bath time. At 4 months old he’d explore cloth books with a look of absolute wonder on his face.
E has such a love of stories and it warms my heart when he picks up a book during the day and asks to read it with one of us on the sofa.
We’ve amassed quite a collection of children’s books so from time to time E and I play the ”keep it” or ‘‘give it away” sorting game. It’s hard not to feel a pang of nostalgia when he chooses to part with an old favourite (like ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’ at the last sorting) but I love the look of sheer delight on his face when he beams ”keep it, I love that one”.
New favourites since turning 3 are Mr Men books and Bod books – stories familiar to both G and I from our own childhoods several decades ago.
Life long favourites for E continue to be the lyrical rhymes of any and all Dr Seuss books and most especially The Lorax. How delightful it is when he points to a picture and describes what he sees or recites whole pages.
”He was shortish and oldish and brownish and mossy.
And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy”.
We have a bookworm, hooray!
‘You cannot open a book without learning something’ – Confucius
