My youngest daughters have been listening /reading a lot of our family's favorite picture books. It's been a joy to reread the antics of Ping, to watch the Little House's surrounding change, to read about Lentil learning to play the harmonica, etc. Eight years ago, our local library was weeding out picture books that weren't being checked out from the library very frequently. The librarian (at the time) gave my family copies of A Pair of Red Clogs, The Duchess Bakes a Cake, and Angus Lost because we were the only people who checked out those titles. All of my children have enjoyed snuggling on my lap and listening to these stories again and again.
My family are all huge readers and we still enjoy family read aloud time together. The older children, ages 10-16, are usually read to about 3 times each week. We don't read the amount of books together that I wish we could, but we fit in what our schedules permit. It's becoming a struggle to find a book to read together as a family that someone hasn't already read. The other tricky part is to hide book that I'm reading so no one reads ahead. What I really need is a newly published author, who writes great books with wide reader appeal, that no one in my family has discovered!
This will probably be my last planned reading of many classic picture books. My little girls are growing up. We will move on to reading about The Hundred Dresses, The Little House on the Prairie books, and other great chapter books. I will enjoy getting reacquainted with some old friends and meeting new characters, but the snuggling together on the couch will never be the same. How blessed I have been to spend the last 21 years reading aloud favorite stories from my childhood.
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