How many books for children do you have lying around? Ten? Twenty? Eighty-five? (My own personal total is closer to the latter.) And if I may, what condition are those books in? If they are in terrific shape, then you should open an account with either Amazon or Ebay and jump on the reselling bandwagon. Don’t be disappointed that your competition for used children’s books is pretty stiff. That’s just the way it is. Perhaps, perhaps you will become your own cottage industry. And bully for you.
On the other hand… are those books dog-eared, often ripped, sometimes chewed upon (by creatures both domesticated and in pre-pre-K), or otherwise taking on the appearance of something normally left at a recycling center? If so, then congratulations. I am about to nominate you for Parent of the Year. I’ll explain…
Every book (picture, pop-up, fiction) can be read more than one way, especially when it comes to you (the parent, overseer, adult) reading with your charge. I will explain: When my two sons were smaller and less enthralled with video games, we had a copy of Janette Sebring Lowrey’s The Poky Little Puppy that we read together over and over and over again. (I began to wince after asking which book to read from on any given evening, as I already knew the answer, having heard it many times previous.) Undeterred, I thought to myself “I just need to make this more interesting for me.” Sure, it was for selfish reasons (no filters here), but the results were incredible.
My initial foray into re-reading found the narrator (me) having suddenly adopted a very thick British accent. And the kids absolutely loved it. They were laughing and giggling, even making their own attempts at United Kingdom-ish words. The next night, I was steeped in steppe tradition (for the uninitiated, Russian). Then it was French (lots of zees and ziss and zat). Just to be clear here, I was not translating the text of The Poky Little Puppy, merely putting a very bad, B-grade Hollywood schmear on things.
In the nights of joined reading that followed, I was asked to infuse the tale with all manner of voices, including Smurf, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and even John Wayne. Though quite amusing at first, I could see myself running out of fake dialects in short order (I’m an illustrator, not an impressionist), and so was forced to consider another option.
This time, it was back to basics; sort of. I chose to read again in my usual drab dad voice, but tossed in a new wrinkle. I told the boys that I would substitute a new word, and they were instructed to stop me immediately and tell me what the word should be. Again, all eyes were glued to the tome, minds racing to understand and to perhaps catch dad in a literary misstep. To wit, kids love to point out things that parents miss, whether purposeful or not… LOL!
As the evening readings went on, I took to doing things as diabolical as slowly rotating the book while the kids attempted to read it (though this would be admittedly more difficult with the iPad and its penchant for wanting to right itself), holding the book up to a mirror and asking them to do the same, even asking if they could read it backwards.
Despite what you may think, I have never tortured my children, at least not in the formal sense. I’ve always loved reading with them, and have found that my unorthodox methods have produced two voracious, intelligent readers. The Poky Little Puppy was only a starting place, as hundreds of other followed suit. Now my grown sons and I have discussions about books and scholarly papers that range from economics to Russian literature. And the next time we have one of those discussions, I just may ask them to use their ‘London’ voice. 🙂
Teach. Learn. Enjoy!
