Reading to Kids

Even though Hannah is nine and a half, and perfectly capable of plowing through all of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Eragon or Tamora Pierce's Shatterglass by herself, I still love to read to her. And she likes being read to, and it's so much fun.

We've been spending the past few hours reading together. She had a stomach ache and to soothe it, I asked if I could read to her. I didn't give her a choice on books, though: I picked up Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and began to read, and she was totally enraptured by it. We had to stop every couple of pages and discuss the differences between Martian and Earth scientists and societies, and do a lot of what-if imagining, and she's still talking about it, even though we're taking a break.

I think I read this book when I was in 8th or 9th grade and she's only in 4th, but her pronouncement on it so far is that it's a real "mind-gripper." She's completely entranced and fascinated and even now, while she's playing game-boy, she's spouting what she thinks about the book so far.

I love that it's captured her imagination. I hope she's never too old for us to at least read together, even if it's not aloud.