What I'm Reading with Greta, Chapter 1: Old Friends, Familiar Faces

This is the first of a series of posts on children's literature I'll be doing, called "What I'm Reading with Greta." Greta is my three-year-old bookworm. I welcome thoughts/comments/suggestions about books you're reading with kids in your life. -AS

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"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." — Emilie Buchwald 

Greta and I visit our public library every Tuesday morning. We hold hands in the parking lot, stop at the return table to unload our bag of the books we picked out last week, say good morning to the librarian, and head upstairs to the children's section.

Just as predictable as this routine is Greta's habit of making a beeline for one short shelf on which rests a care-worn collection of Berenstain Bears books. We have checked out every one of them at least once – the original picture books, the “beginning reader” books (which, like all books of this type, make terrible read-aloud material – but I'll save that for another blog post), and last time we even found one of the books is available as an audio version. I have to admit, I was almost as happy as Greta to make this discovery, because it meant one less Berenstain Bear book that I would be reading. 

Perhaps you've caught from my tone that these books aren't my favorites. The strange thing is, I'm the one who got Greta interested in the first place. I had fond (and apparently fuzzy) memories of reading about Brother and Sister Bear when I was a child, and I thought it would be wonderful to revisit the stories with her. Well... she has found it wonderful. My husband and I have found it to be a bit of a drag. For starters, our library has about a dozen of the books (and we now own a few additional titles), so we read and reread and re-reread the books, and while her ardor does not wane, ours wanes rather quickly. If there is any ardor to begin with. Because the other, larger problem we have with them is the depiction of Mama and Papa Bear, the latter of which is basically Homer Simpson, but less complex and way less funny. Along these lines, the morals at the end of some of these stories aren't exactly what we would have Greta internalizing – for example, in The Berenstain Bears and the Truth, Mama says that trust is something that, once broken, cannot be repaired. Hopefully for Greta, at the tender age of three, most of this is going over her head. Then there are the titles that deal with topics that are clearly for older children (and I don't fault the authors for this; if anything, we're introducing them on the early side, and that's our choice) – Report Card Trouble comes to mind as one that I've decided we won't be reading right now. I also try to avoid letting her check out Too Much Junk Food, since it follows the typical American narrative of food being “good” or “bad” fuel for our body-machines. I reject this for reasons I won't get into here (so stay tuned for that blog post, too). 

A little bartering goes a long way at the library, and I'm usually successful in getting her to put back a Berenstain Bear book that I don't want in exchange for a book from Mercer Mayer's Critter series – or by setting an arbitrary limit on how many she can get in a given trip, or occasionally by simply telling her that the book is for bigger kids, and we can check it out when she's older (say, when she's fourteen). 

Still, I think that part of what made me the avid reader I am today is that my parents mostly gave me  free rein in selecting reading material. They did quite a bit to introduce me to quality authors and works, but they didn't restrict my choices, and as I grew older, I was able to start introducing them to quality material I had found as a result of their encouraging me to explore just about whatever I wanted to. I came across the above quote from Emilie Buchwald recently, and it reminded me that sometimes my job is to provide the lap and the audio, and let Greta provide the book. It may not be my idea of a good time to read The Trouble with Friends for the sixteenth bedtime in a row, but sometimes the point is just to be reading with her (and sometimes I can amuse myself by doing voices for all the characters).  

I'm in the third trimester of my pregnancy. My IQ seems to dip when I'm pregnant, and my brain feels like when you're watching Netflix over a slow Internet connection and keep getting that buffering symbol. Every conversation I have, every book I read, I'm having to pause to allow buffering. I've had to apologize at least twice for appearing disinterested in someone's idea, explaining later that it was the result of my genuine inability to apprehend what was being said and respond with an appropriate level of enthusiasm. (And I was sincerely enthusiastic both times! Just very, very slow on the uptake.)

The result is that some of my more serious reading has been put on hold. I hope to get back to it when I'm nursing my newborn, with the help of Marc's Kindle (a luxury I didn't have last time). Meanwhile, I'm reading some things that I can dip into periodically without losing the thread of a larger argument or plot.* I also just finished rereading the entire Harry Potter series for the, oh, I'm not even sure how many times I've read those books. I pick them up individually every now and then when I need some light, fun reading, but it had been quite a while since I'd worked my way through all seven books consecutively.

Let me tell you now that these books never have, and never will, get old for me. I greet the characters as old friends, and fondly watch them grow from kids riding broomsticks for the first time to young adults battling the forces of evil in the world with all the courage, skill, and greatness of heart that they have acquired in their years at Hogwarts. I love the way the books grow steadily more complex, without losing the charm and winsome humor that got me hooked on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, back when I was about eleven years old myself. The stories never fail to captivate me, and I still stay up past bedtime to read an extra chapter, especially when I get to the final books of the series and the suspense is killing me – even though I know how it ends. I still laugh out loud at the dialogue, I still feel my eyes sting with tears when characters die – alright, maybe I sound a little kooky, but these books have meant so much to me since I was in middle school, and I can't wait for my own kids to be old enough to enjoy them, too. It's partly the magic of nostalgia, partly the brilliant storytelling of J. K. Rowling, and partly the way that the books subtly change each time I read them, because I come to them each time a different reader.

So, while I was curled up on the couch one evening not long ago, relishing another hour spent at Hogwarts, my husband pointed out that maybe, just maybe, I had a mild case of pot-calling-kettle-black syndrome. He didn't need to explain what he meant, and I don't think I do, either. I immediately made my peace with my daughter's favorite series (although my husband and I still exchange eye-rolls and cutting remarks about them when she's not around). If she needs to take regular trips to the tree house down a sunny dirt road deep in Bear Country, well, who am I to say no? I still need to get my ticket punched on the Hogwarts Express every now and then. Anyway, I'd take that trip with her any day of the week rather than spend the time exploring with Dora. But that, dear reader, is a subject for yet another day.

*For the curious, I'm reading: What To Eat by Marion Nestle, Consider the Birds by Debbie Blue, and The Forest Unseen by David Haskell. I'm also reading The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins, partly to fulfill a reading requirement for DONA certification, and partly to refresh my memory, since I'll be a nursing mother again in about – yikes – nine weeks!