A Link and a Digression

First, a small dance of happiness, because Ask Moxie really liked Cynthia Cooper's book Extraordinary Circumstances (which some of you may remember I'm the marketing manager for). Even better, she's a mom in New York who noticed and identified with the woman's story at the heart of Circumstances, which is something that hasn't really come out in the reviews and coverage so far.

(Second, I think I now have a new blog to read.)

And the digression: I see that Moxie's 2-year-old is obsessed with Goodnight Moon. My older son, Thing 1, was similarly obsessed for several years. In fact, for at least a one-year period, I had to read him Goodnight Moon last every night. (At that point, I was reading five books to him every night, thinking that I could make him into a reader by pure volume of prose.)

Goodnight Moon is cute. It's sweet. But there's not all that much to it, so it can get monotonous. So I started reading it in funny voices (which Thing 1 sometimes allowed, and sometimes not). And then I realized I had the thing memorized, so I read it blindfolded for a while. That wasn't enough, so I finally started reading it backwards, which Thing 1 loved. ("Everywhere noises goodnight. Air goodnight. Stars goodnight. Hush whispering lady old the to goodnight.")

And then I got to the point where I had it memorized backwards, so I did it blindfolded that way.

Sometimes, when reading books to kids, you have to do silly things just to keep yourself entertained. (With Thing 2, it's mostly adding the word "official" -- from One Monster After Another -- to almost every noun in a Mercer Mayer book until the boy complains.) Kids like repetition, yes -- but you still have to throw them a curveball now and then, because the rest of life is never going to pitch straight to them. And besides, as Daffy said, it's fun!