Reading Aloud to Your Child or Grand is Important to Them and to YOU on National Tell-Me-a-Story-Day!
I think any one who blogs on children’s picture books is always checking out new children’s picture book websites in the world of KidLit to see what’s new, what’s exciting, what’s out there. One day during this surfing expedition, I stumbled across a site called “Sara’s iPad”- I believe it was the January 22nd posting on her site some years ago.
To my utter surprise I found on that website her posting written on 17 episodes of read alouds I had done for Penguin Story Time. What struck me was that the author of the website said that she used these read alouds for her children during times she was multi tasking, prepping dinner or a host of other things (as most mothers do) and wanted them to have something to listen to and read that would be interesting and educational.
So, that statement got me to thinking at that time, that in the posting of essential classics that I do on Liz’s Book Snuggery every now and then, I would incorporate some read alouds in a section called Way Back Wednesday
I think it’s essential for children to be read to and with, and I also think that few things can take the place of sitting down with a child, paging through a book, discussing the art, the narratives; all while sharing that moment in time.
So, although nothing can replace the parent/child experience of sitting down with a book, I hope that the read alouds that I post on episodes of Way back Wednesday may fill in those spots that a parent, because of other commitments or constraints, though wishing to, can’t immediately sit down with their child for a cuddle up and read.
I hope it will be an addendum to parents reading to their children, and I know I enjoy doing it very much. I am happy to see that these episodes for Penguin Story Time are still being enjoyed by children in 2019.
It got me to thinking… as I look back on my own children’s childhood bedtime, anytime, reading, that it was a sort of sacred moment of shared time in which we enjoyed the story together.
And, whether it was the same old favorite, read for the umpteenth time, a new story or a chapter book that had we had left off at some exciting point, we were eager for that shared time to begin again.
Keep that sacred space with your own children and grands, please!
Whether you realize it or no, it’s a closing window of opportunity, folks!
So, on April 27th, which is National Tell-Me- A-Story-Day, when we either read a story, tell one or share a memory aloud with children, here’s my contribution to the day.
It’s James Marshal’s Caldecott Award winning story of that classic burglarizing blond called….Goldilocks!