Reading Aloud

An important part of our day, here in the gallery, involves reading aloud to the little peanuts. I love doing it, and they never tire of hearing stories. Master *loves* sitting in our laps for reading time, and especially loves it when his Daddy makes 'brroooom, brrroooom' car noises. He chuckles and grins, and tries to help with turning the pages. I am always amazed at the degree to which very young babies can enjoy looking at books and listening to stories. I thought of Master when I read this quote, from Dr. Grant's blog:

The best thing about reading aloud to children aside from developmental progress and all that good stuff, is onomatopoeia. “Clang, clang!” “Harrumph!” “Chugga-chugga” “Choo-Choo” “Splat” “Ring! Ring!” “Flutter, Flutter.” Wonderful children’s literature doesn’t just progress along the pages in staid font transferring information, it sings out from the very book at us! Be it Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel digging away furiously or Peter Rabbit hopping lippity, lippity through Mr. MacGregor’s dangerous garden patch, we are fully engaged from once-upon-a-time to everyone-lived-happily-ever-after. Ducks wear poke bonnets, trains wish desperately to make children happy, dreams come true, elephants and carpets fly, and small children affect the outcome of their worlds. Adults who wear business attire and behave perfectly appropriately in steel and glass towers day after monotonous day transform themselves into snakes, mean old hags, princesses with snooty accents, and sorrowful baby bears when a small child is snuggled on their lap with a good book. Is it any wonder that a happy child’s evening litany includes “Read one more book, please?”