I love reading with a four-year-old...

Sometimes I see comments online (or even hear them said in real life) to the effect that it's so difficult to read to a small child, because they keep interrupting and it's impossible to read 'properly'. I usually respond that this is what it's supposed to be like - the words and pictures in a young child's book are the starting point for imagination and discussion, not something to be sat through and endured.

And since I had the privilege of reading to one of my favourite small people this morning, without further ado I present an approximate transcript:

E (nearly four-and-a-half) asked me to read 'Mister Magnolia' by Quentin Blake, after a couple of other books. I hadn't read it for a while and it's not too long; I was happy to oblige.

Me: 'Mister Magnolia, by Quentin Blake.'

I turned to the first familiar page and read the classic catchphrase that recurs throughout the book:

Mr Magnolia has only one boot. 

E: And a stripy shirt
Me: Yes, he does, but the words don't say that.
E: What do the words say?
Me: Mr Magnolia has only one boot.
E: You should say 'BOOOT' (said in a high-pitched tone).
Me: Mr Magnolia has only one BOOOT.  No, that sounds silly.
E: Read the words.
Me: I've read all the words on this page.
E: You didn't read the words on the other page.
Me: They're not very interesting.
E: Read them!
Me: Okay. Text and illustrations copyright 1980 Quentin Blake. All Rights Reserved. First published in Great Britain 1980 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.... are you sure you want me to continue?
E: Yes!
Me: (several more lines about where the book was first published in various countries)
E: Now the other page
Me: You know what it says.
E: It should say Mrs, that's a girl
Me: No, it's a man. Mr Magnolia
E: That long word, that says Magnolia
Me: That's right. And 'M-R' says 'Mister'.
E: I think it says OOT.
Me: Well the last word does if we cover up the 'b' at the front. Then it says 'Mr Magnolia has only one oot'.
E: You covered the 'b'
Me (uncovering it) Yes. That word says 'boot', so if I cover up the 'b' it says 'oot'
E: Turn the page!

Me (with relief) He has an old trumpet that goes rooty-toot--
E: That's a guitar case on the floor. So he must be a girl.
Me: Boys can have guitar cases too
(Brief digression involving other members of E's family about people of both genders whom we know who play the guitar, eventually agreeing that a guitar case could be owned by a man or a woman).
E: Why does he keep a trumpet in his guitar case?
Me: Ah. Good point. It's not a guitar case, it's a trumpet case.
E: It looks like a guitar case
Me: Yes, it does, but it's not really the right shape.
E: And Mr Magnolia has only one boot
Me: True, but it doesn't say so on this page.
E: Turn the page

Me:And two lovely sisters who play on the flute --
E: They are girls
Me: Yes, they're his sisters so they must be girls
E: I know they're girls because they have long hair. This one is VERY long
Me: True, but boys can have long hair. And girls can have short hair...
E: They're not very pretty
Me: No, and their dresses are too long. If they stood up they might trip over.
E: Do they have any boots?
Me: I don't know. We can't see their feet because the dresses are so long.
(Brief digression as we all discuss the possible footwear, or lack thereof, which the sisters might be wearing, and a comment about Quentin Blake's drawings always looking that way, and discussion about whether or not the sisters are actually lovely.. mention, too, of the cups of tea and biscuits shown in the picture, and whether they could eat biscuits while playing the flute...)
E: Next page!

Me: In his pond live a frog and a toad and a newt --
E: Which one is the newt? (points) I think that's the frog (pointing at the toad)
Me: No, the one squatting down is the toad, I think the other one is the frog.
E: Hmmm.
(I turn the page)

Me: He has...
E: Why are those birds making holes in his suit?
Me: Because they're parakeets
E: Why does he have them?
Me: I don't know. I don't think he should: that cage is too small for even one parakeet, and there are four of them in the picture.
E: Read it!
Me: He has green parakeets who pick holes in his suit --
E: What's that word? (points at the long one)
Me: Parakeets. A very useful word to be able to read...
(E's mother points out that it's at least phonetic)
(I turn the page)

Me: And some very fat owls who are learning to hoot --
H (E's six-year-old sister, who was busy doing something else) What is 'hoot'?
H&E's mother demonstrates hooting
E: But Mr Magnolia... go on, read the rest!
Me: But Mr Magnolia has only one boot.

By this stage, I was eleven pages into a book which - if read straight through - would only take about a minute to read, and we had been reading and discussing it for at least ten minutes.

I did finish the rest of the book rather more quickly... although we had further discussion about what a salute is, whether the dinosaur was realistic, and why it was raining.

Not every book is discussed this extensively - I think this is the longest we've ever taken with this particular one! - but this is the kind of conversation that makes reading aloud to young children so very enjoyable.

<--- and this is a link to 'Mister Magnolia' on Amazon UK, just in case anybody who reads this post is wondering what happened at the end of the story, or would like to have a copy to read to their own small child.

You are what you read?

I was tagged on Facebook by a friend who had listed ten books that 'stayed' with her. The challenge was not to think hard or come up with great literature, but to list, off the top of my head, ten books that had affected me in some way.

Ten.

Only ten books!

We own about three thousand, and while I freely admit that I am unlikely to read some of them again (and at least a few hundred are thrillers which I don't suppose I'll ever read) I feel most comfortable when I am in a house with plenty of books. When I know I will never run out of things to read. I keep a couple of hundred unread books on my Kindle, too, just in case.

I think, if I absolutely had to, I could reduce my books to around one thousand, so long as I knew that the rest were going to good homes. But even that would be difficult. So many good books, so many wonderful authors. Even if I don't re-read a book in its entirety, I may well dip into it again.

But it was a challenge I could not resist. I certainly wasn't going to write about the first ten books that came into my head; I wanted to make sure they really had influenced or affected me in some way - that they had genuinely 'stayed' with me over the years.  So I started jotting down a few titles...

Taking my cue from the old 'Desert Island Discs' radio show, I decided to assume that the Bible and the entire works of Shakespeare can automatically be included, so I wasn't going to list either as part of my ten. The Bible has affected me more than any other book; or, rather, collection of books - it's kept one volume, usually, but is 66 books in all. Some of them are very short, and some have influenced me a lot more than others. John's gospel and letters are probably the ones I would choose if I had to pick just a few.

As for Shakespeare, I'm not an unqualified out-and-out fan, but several of his plays have stuck in my mind and I love watching them; Shakespeare coined so many phrases that we're all affected by him regularly.

I thought more about the insistence that I should choose books should have STAYED with me. I decided that, for that to be the case, they must be books which I first read at least 20 years ago. So that excludes Philip Yancey's 'What's so Amazing about Grace?' (and all else he's written), JK Rowling's Harry Potter series,  Susan Howatch's 'Glittering Images' (and sequels), plus Wayne Jacobsen and Brian McLaren's books - all of which will undoubtedly stay with me and be re-read in the future. These books have affected my philosophy and worldview within the past twenty years and I'd recommend them to anyone. I make no apology for the Christian themes (overt or otherwise) for all the above. (Links are to my book reviews blog).

When I started thinking about books that had influenced me profoundly, I really wanted to include the original 'Good Housekeeping' cookery book, which we were given as a wedding present and which I still refer to, even though it's falling to pieces (and even though I have an updated modern version - which is still good, but completely different). But something had to go, so I decided to limit my list to fiction, if I was to have any hope at all of choosing just ten.

Below is the list I posted, in roughly the order in which I first read them. I decided to see which of them I had read in the past 16 years and thus reviewed on my book blog, and was a little surprised to find eight of them - some of them I read more than once, even in this timeframe. I think that underlines just how much these books have, indeed, stayed with me. As for the remaining two, one is too short for a book review on my blog, and one of them is long out of print and unavailable.

1. The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton - this is the earliest book I can recall reading, when I was about five or six. I was - well - enchanted by it and its sequels, and re-read them many times. This book introduced me to fairies and fairy-tales, dreams and wishes, and the concept of good triumphing over evil. (They're not at all politically correct, but I didn't notice until I read them aloud to my sons many years later).

2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis - I suppose I was about six or seven when I first read this. Maybe younger - it's a book that's always been on my shelves, along with its sequels. I do know that the first time I read it, I took it all at face value as a wonderful adventure story. A couple of years later I read the whole series again and had an amazing 'aha!' moment as I realised that it was all connected with God. I'm so glad I discovered that for myself, and that nobody tried to explain the allegories to me.

3. Margaret and the Currant Bunny by Edith Elias - I read this book almost every summer from the time I was about seven; it was on the shelves in my bedroom at my grandparents' house; an old book, even in the 1960s. It sent shivers up my spine but I couldn't resist it. I wish I knew what had happened to it - it's apparently impossible to find a copy of it now. Maybe I would hate it as an adult. But I've never forgotten it.

4. The School at the Chalet by Elinor M Brent-Dyer - This is another book which I initially discovered at my grandparents' home, along with about fifteen of the sequels. I was perhaps eight or nine when I started reading these; I already loved Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers books, but there was so much more depth in the Chalet School series. I was thrilled to find the entire series (over 50 books!) in the library at my secondary school. The first book isn't my favourite by a long way; it's a bit slow-moving and I'd recommend new readers to start with the second. But it was my entry into the wonderful world of thinking, discussing, interesting education. The books also reinforced the importance of honesty and authenticity, and close families; it also helped me understand good sportsmanship. I wanted to be Joey Maynard when I grew up.

5. Gemma by Noel Streatfeild. I'd read 'Ballet Shoes', of course, and various others by this author, but I think I was about ten before I came across 'Gemma' and its three sequels, and was totally captivated. Wonderful family stories, even if they do include the typecast highly gifted children!

6. Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville. Again, the first of a series and not my favourite of the 20 'Lone Pine' books; but it was the introduction to yet another world of friendship mixed with loyalty and love.

7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - We had to read the first two or three chapters of this for English homework one weekend when I was around 14. I started reading.. and couldn't put it down. I emerged, starry-eyed, when it was time for lunch and kept reading afterwards. I asked for a copy of my own for Christmas and re-read it many times. It was my favourite book for years.

8. An Old-fashioned girl by Louisa M Alcott - I'd read the 'Little Women' books, but came across this lesser-known teenage novel by the same author when I was about fifteen. I fell in love with it and have read it many times.

9. The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, age 37 3/4 by Adrian Plass - I first read this shortly after it was published in 1987, and it was the first book ever to make me laugh out loud on almost every page. It pokes gentle satirical fun at the silliness of some (all right, a lot of) Christians, and yet is incredibly thought-provoking at the same time. I became an instant Plass fan, and have read all his other books, but the first one (which STILL makes me chuckle when I re-read it) has a special place in my heart.

10. Dogger by Shirley Hughes. I first came across this when a friend's small daughter borrowed it from school - so although it's a children's picture book, I didn't actually read it until around 1990. She read half of it to me, and I read the rest to myself later; it was so lovely, it brought tears to my eyes. I bought it for my sons, and read it to them - difficult without choking up - and gradually they grew out of it. But it's one of the picture book I've kept, and when I got it out to read to small friends in the past few years, it made me cry all over again. I love all Shirley Hughes' books, but 'Dogger' is, I think, my all-time favourite picture book.

So - that's ten books, all of which influenced me in some way, all of which have reinforced positive character traits and the importance of family and friends. I think that's probably why they stood out in my mind; a couple of hours after writing the Facebook update, I think these are still the ten I would choose.

As I was writing my list, I did remember many other books that have been important to me over the years. As a child, I loved the Paddington series by Michael Bond, AA Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, books by E Nesbit, Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, and many more. In more recent years I've discovered and enjoyed the 'Sophie' series by Dick King-Smith, and the series starting with 'Saffy's Angel' by Hilary McKay. And I suppose if I want to be literal about a book staying with me, I should also mention 'I had trouble in getting to Solla Sollew' by Dr Seuss, which I used to read nightly to my sister, and can still recite, pretty much, from memory.

But while I read and enjoyed all those books, and others, I don't think they affected me on a deep level as the ones on my list did. Having said that, I should give a special mention to 'Treasures of the Snow' by Patricia M St John; I first read that when I was about six and it had a profound influence on my life and my early Christian faith. It certainly affected me as a child, in a far-reaching way; but I haven't read it in a long time, and didn't think of it until I'd finished my list. Perhaps I should re-read it soon.

As a young adult, I enjoyed books by Georgette Heyer, and PG Wodehouse, and Rosamunde Pilcher; these were my stepping stones from children's fiction into books intended for adults, so they are significant in that respect; I've discovered many great authors in the past thirty years or so. But I haven't been influenced by fiction as an adult nearly as much as I was as a child. But then, my core values and beliefs were mostly formed by the time I was in my twenties.

Being a Blessing

I'm currently reading 'The Story we Find Ourselves in' by the somewhat controversial Brian McLaren. It's written in a style that the author calls 'creative non-fiction', but I prefer to think of it as 'intelligent fiction with a message.' I'm only a third of the way through, very much enjoying the dialogue between the Jamaican radical Christian known as Neo, the ex-charismatic agnostic Kelly, and the cheerful atheist Glenn. What all three have in common is that they have PhDs in sciences.

The style of dialogue in the book is discussion, questioning, and the gradual unfolding of the overall 'story' of Scripture, which is how Neo claims that it would originally have been understood by the story-telling Jewish culture in which it was written. It's all thought-provoking, and the fictional style makes it entirely possible to agree strongly with some points that are made, while being unsure about - or even disagreeing with - others.

Today I was struck powerfully by some comments about Genesis 12:2-3. God chose Abraham, who is in a sense the patriarch of all the three main monotheistic religions of today.  He chose him not because there was anything special about Abraham, and not for the sake of granting him 'eternal life' - something which would not really have been an issue in the culture of the day.  He chose Abraham 'to be a blessing'. In some translations it's even more direct - God tells Abraham that he must be a blessing. The command is not just to bless his own family, but so that 'all the families on earth' would be blessed.  Another word for 'families' is 'nations' - the two modern English words were covered by the same concept at the time.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and Jesus said something similar, when asked by his disciples what the greatest commandment was, in Matthew 22:34-40. Love God, and love our neighbours, Jesus said. Every other command, rule or requirement is subsidiary to those two principles. I wrote at length about what is meant by love in another post, but a further thought emerges: we are in a relationship with Jesus  primarily in order that we can show God's love to other people. Not his anger, or his judgement, but his love.

Something else Jesus said, in John 15:16-17 also makes a lot more sense in this context. Some Christians understand the words 'You did not choose me, but I chose you...' to imply that we have no choice in our salvation; that some people are 'chosen', and some are not. But that's not what Jesus says. The rest of that short passage tells his listeners - and by implication all his followers through the ages - why they were chosen: 'to bear fruit' and 'to love one another'.

God is our Creator. He made the world and the first people so that they could continue the creative pattern he programmed into them.  Apple trees bear apples, cats bear kittens, humans bear babies. And when we are chosen and thus given 'blessings' by God, we are to bless other people, introducing them to God's love, bringing them also into his kingdom.

What does 'blessing' mean? 

Blessing is rather an old-fashioned word, one which sounds vaguely to me like a benevolent old man laying his hand on his grandchildren's heads, as a gesture of good will and approval. It's also used as a Christian jargon word to mean gifts from God - maybe a cheque in the post, a promotion at work, an unexpected meeting with a friend. We might use it in more general terms too, to refer to good health, warm homes, happy families. Unfortunately, as with so much modern Christian jargon, the original meaning can get lost in our 21st century western context.

In Brian McLaren's book referred to above, there's some discussion about what 'being a blessing'  meant in the phrase given Abraham. Eventually the participants agree that it means 'to try to help, to bring resources, to encourage, to believe in, to support, to affirm, to have a high opinion of.' In summary, Neo suggests, it means 'to express love and support'. He points out that despite it being an age of kingdoms and battles, God does NOT tell Abraham to go out and conquer all the surrounding regions, nor does he tell him to force people to follow his commandments.

There was a comment after my post about love, mentioning a quotation attributed to Billy Graham: 'It's God's job to judge, the Holy Spirit's job to convict and our job to love'. I would suggest that God's 'job' primarily is to love too; it saddens me deeply when some people seem to see God as someone rubbing his hands, hoping to condemn sinners to eternal torment. However, the point of that quotation is that ONLY God is able to judge other people. So, it seems to me that our role is primarily to reflect his love outwardly, and 'bless' all those with whom we come into contact.

How we actually do that in practice will depend on our personalities, our circumstances and our abilities.

The Problems of being a Bookworm...

It all started when someone posted an image on Facebook, which said: "Bookworm Problem no. 37: Pronouncing a word incorrectly because you've read it hundreds of times but never heard it said aloud." There was much discussion about words which I and some of my friends did indeed misprounounce for years: allies, meringue, superfluous, hyperbole, indict, epitome, vaseline... and many more.

Another important question then arose: If that is problem number 37... what are the other 36?

So, in an idle moment, and with help from a friend to bring the total to 40, I compiled this list. Much (though by no means all) of which is based on personal experience.

Beginning in the elementary/primary school years...

1. You believe that ‘reading aloud’ in the early years is a slow, sounding-out process that has no relation to real reading

2. You regularly lose the ‘correct’ place when doing group reading at school, because you are reading so far ahead on your own

3. You take more notice of what fictional parents say than your own

4. You regularly bump into lamp posts or trees because you were reading while walking

5. Your family hunt all over for you, and you don’t hear them calling because you’re up a tree, deep in a book

It gets worse during the secondary/high school years...

6. You believe completely in Middle Earth and Hogwarts, but sometimes wonder if China really exists

7. Your family panics when you vanish from sight for hours in a large and rambling second-hand bookshop

8. When you are assigned a classic for English homework, you're disappointed to find that you have already read it, probably more than once

9. You break up with your girlfriend/boyfriend because she/he isn’t interested in your favourite authors

10. You have to catalogue your books carefully or you forget which ones you already have

11. You have no idea what to give someone for their birthday when they don’t want any more books

12. You can’t actually figure out what is meant by ‘not wanting any more books’

13. You teach your young siblings the alphabet: A for Austen, B for Brontë, C for Coleridge, D for Dickens...

14. When you play Scattergories, you can find about twenty authors for any letter, but struggle with many of the other options

15. You can find all the bookshops in any town, but have no idea where restaurants are

16. Your friends call you geeky because you know so much

17. You’re puzzled when acquaintances don’t get the literary references you use automatically

18. You emerge, starry-eyed, from the end of a wonderful book only to discover that it’s morning, and you never went to bed

19. You are mystified when someone asks what you collect. Books, of course.. what else is there to collect?

20. You get depressed when you learn that around 200,000 new books are published every year in the UK alone, and you realise that you can never catch up

Adult life begins, but the problems of being a bookworm only multiply... 

21. You get into your first ever fight with your parents when you’re leaving home, and can’t agree which are ‘your’ books

22. You need new clothes, but books are a much higher priority

23. You forget to reply to your emails because you're too busy reading

24. You buy a Kindle so as to save space, and now you have a large collection there, but you still keep acquiring real books too

25. When you completely run out of shelf space, you don’t think of getting rid of anything - you have to buy a new bookcase

26. You become disillusioned, because nobody in real life lives up to your favourite fictional heroes/heroines

27. The only websites you ever visit are Amazon, Abe, Waterstones, Play and The Book Depository 

28. You frequently miss a bus stop or train station because you’re so engrossed in a book

29. You become frantic when the final book in a series is out of print and you can’t find it anywhere second-hand

30. You feel sad but remote from real life disasters, yet cry your eyes out after reading about Beth March/Walter Blythe/Dobby

Even when you have settled down with a job, house, and/or family, the problems continue... 

31. When you run out of room for bookcases the only option is to move to a bigger house

32. You take a job abroad for a few years, and fill all your boxes with essential books... then realise you have to take some clothes too

33. You can find obscure reference books in a few seconds, but have no idea where you keep the basil and thyme

34. You spend hours online when you should be doing something else, trying to find a copy of an obscure book you vaguely recall from your childhood

35. An old schoolfriend reminds you about a teacher, and you don’t remember if it was a real one or someone from a school story

36. You forget an important meeting with your boss because you’re so absorbed in a book

37. You pronounce a word incorrectly because you’ve read it hundreds of times but never heard it said aloud

38. You can't imagine getting rid of your 30-volume 1980s encyclopedia to save space, even though you know it’s out of date, and quicker to find things out online

39. Visitors worry that your marriage is in difficulties because you have 27 books about marriage on your shelves

40. You never get round to actually doing anything other than reading, because for any new interest or hobby you first have to acquire and absorb several books on the topic