Family reading

We have family reading time in the evenings, whenever we are all home and have half an hour to spare before kid bedtime. I sit in the living room and read aloud; Dale and the kids eat ice cream at the dining room table, then Dale curls up on the couch, and the kids draw or play with legos while they listen. Sometimes this is every night, sometimes we go weeks without reading; it depends on our other activities, the kids' homework, and so on. It's great when we can do it regularly, because we all love it.

We started (some time ago... could it be a couple years by now?) with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The children were completely captivated. I remember that as I read, they would come a little closer and a little closer, so that eventually they were each draped over one side of the armchair I was in, gazing at the Tenniel illustrations while I read. The story literally drew them in. Jordan loved the wordplay, which was a little over Aaron's head at the time (part of why I think it might have been a couple years ago). They both loved the absurdity. I adored these stories as a kid, especially Through the Looking Glass (more logical); I read that one over and over. Dad still has "my" old copy at his house, and a number of corners are torn from the pages... As a kid I really liked chewing on paper, and I especially liked the pages of this book, which were thick and soft and booky-tasting. It was a big hardback with large margins, so I couldn't see any harm in it at the time. Jordan and Aaron thought this was pretty funny. They did not inherit my paper-eating urge.

I am not perfectly sure what we read next but I think it was the Wizard of Oz. I don't think I had ever read the original before, and we all enjoyed it a lot. Another one with wonderful illustrations. They had not yet seen the movie - it was too scary for Aaron, but Jordan watched it with me on a sick day, and it was a great time. Next we tried a contemporary book that turned out to be forgettable and I'm pretty sure we never finished it. I determined to stick to truly unmissable titles, preferably classics. So we read The Hobbit, and of course, it was fantastic. It is such a fun series of vignettes, never a dull moment, and funny, in a way that was enticing and surprising for the kids. This was our first book with almost no pictures at all, and quite a bit longer than the other books we had read, but the boys loved every second of it. They drew fanatically while I read, scenes of Gandalf and trolls and mountains and dragons. They were so hooked.  I especially enjoyed reading a book that was way beyond either of their reading level, where we had to stop and discuss vocabulary pretty regularly, but that we could all thoroughly enjoy nonetheless. And I had fun with the voices. Apparently I'm good at it; my family showers me with compliments.

Next we read three E. B. White books in a row - Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. I think we might have gotten interrupted from reading Stuart Little and not gotten back to it, but oh, wow, the other two were both so good, we could not get enough of them. Even better than I remembered. The characters are so rich, with thoughtful interior lives, and the action is wonderfully imaginative but also completely relatable. The trumpeter swan is named Louis! which went straight over my head the first time around. Of course we all cried our eyes out over Charlotte's Web, and then I had to go rent the 1973 animated movie, and we laughed and cried and sang all the songs. Debbie Reynolds! Aaron figured out how to play the chorus to "Deep in the Dark" on the piano, and we heard it over and over and over for many weeks. I love it still. I hear that E. B. White hated that movie. And did you know that's the same White as Strunk & White? Wow.

After that streak of contemporary fun I decided to pull out the big guns again and we read The Fellowship of the Ring. Such a completely different book from The Hobbit: so much more serious and sustained, and the fears are so real, and the plot so much more epic. And you know what? We never tired of it. The boys hung on every word. The magic, the monsters, the mysteries, the danger, the loyalty, the resourcefulness; the myriad characters, the setbacks, the mounting dread, even those long landscape descriptions; they loved it all. When that was done there was no question of stopping, so on we went to The Two Towers and The Return of the King, meaning yes, we did, we read the whole trilogy. Every bleedin' word. It took months and months. The children drew the scenes, acted out the dramas, discussed the plot points, guessed the endings, and we read and read and read. Again with the voices. It was a whole family era, and a wonderful one.

Next was Harry Potter I, II, and III, and that was a total blast. Dale and I had read all the Harry Potters (aloud!) as they came out but not since, and neither of the kids had read them, so we could all just enjoy the heck out of their fantasticness. Maybe in a year I'll read another one. I feel strongly that a great book is great at the right time, and that if you a great book read at the wrong time, there's a risk of not appreciating it. For example, a librarian I admire asserted that Moby Dick is a great book that is not meant for teenagers, and that assigning it in high school is a terrible idea because they hate it and never read it again. For another example, thank goodness I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in college, while I was also reading Plato, because I could really appreciate it then, and if I tried to read it now I bet I wouldn't like it anymore. I know there are first and second graders reading the whole Harry Potter series, and that's up to them, but I think IV and forward are much more adult themes (plus they are getting too scary for Aaron), and that you never get the chance at a first time again. So they are on the shelf. If either of the boys wanted to read them, they could pick them up on their own, but they aren't doing that, and I'm kind of glad.

Next we read The Book of Three, which Dale and I both loved as kids. And I am sorry to say that it did not hold up at all. It felt like a cheap Tolkien knockoff; the same magicky-questy-companions outline but with thin characters, limping dialogue, and a story I couldn't entirely follow. I found that while I was reading it, I kept accidentally reading it with the wrong tone, because things happened that felt out of character or out of the blue. The boys seemed to enjoy it just fine, but Dale and I were bored.

I thought part of the problem might be that we were too much in the fantasy genre, in which maybe everything was going to seem like a Tolkien knockoff. So for our next book I changed genres: another childhood favorite of mine, but this one a little more toward science fiction with a math/physics angle: A Wrinkle in Time. This is the one we are reading right now, and unfortunately, we are disappointed again. It feels like one of these books that is all about being a moralizing analogy to something, instead of having a life of its own. It's very conceptual, and people keep having to explain things to each other. I am kind of slogging through it. I can't remember what I liked about it so much as a kid. The angry girl protagonist? Maybe she was unique in children's literature at the time? Well, maybe things have gotten better; she's no Katniss.

So what shall we read next? I am avoiding the Narnia series: even though I loved those as a kid, I have heard reviewers say they don't hold up, and talk abut your heavy-handed analogy. I wonder about Peter Pan, but some friends have found that the racial and gender sterotypes in that one are so awful they can hardly read it. I have Peter and the Starcatchers on deck, a modern prequel to Peter Pan that a lot of people love, and I'm looking forward to that. Someday I'm expecting to read A Wizard of Earthsea, but it's too much in the Tolkien genre for right now. I've also had recommendations for Farmer Boy (Louisa May Alcott). My ideal books are classics (though I'm open to modern classics), above the kids' reading level, that we can all genuinely look forward to hearing together night after night. Any suggestions?