Sharing the Joy

This weekend, my son turns three-years-old, and over the past couple of months, he has discovered books.

I’ve kept books around the house in baskets, on shelves, casually stacked on tables, and pretty much anywhere I could since before he was born. Around the time he was six months old, I started mixing in some board books. He never expressed much interest in those, though. When he was about a year old, he began showing interest in Pokemon, so we bought some Pikachu books. Those sort of held his attention, but not for long; it seemed like he wasn’t “ready” for books.

But since I started working in the literary field last year, he’s started copying everything I do, even wearing a spare set of my readers on top of his head and flipping through anything with pages. When Nick and I started discussing what we could get him for his birthday, books were the number one item.

We started giving him a few presents (books and a t-shirt) last night (birthdays are several-day celebrations here), and he flipped through the five or six Little Golden Books he’d received. He picked one, immediately started turning pages, then stopped abruptly.

There was a picture of a dinosaur in distress.

He pointed to the triceratops. “Be okay?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Nick said, “he’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure he’ll be okay?”

“Yes, I’m sure. See? The doctor is making him all better,” I added.

“He take a nap? Feel better?”

“Yeah, buddy, he’ll take a nap and feel all better.”

And then, my son gave the image of the dinosaur a kiss.

It was a heart-melting moment, and this scene repeated itself for almost an hour before Nick put our son to bed…after a discussion that he needed to put the book on his bookcase and he shouldn’t sleep with it so the pages don’t get bent.

As a bookworm, this development in our son’s journey to discover books feels amazing. As I write this, he’s sitting in my reading chair, cuddling the dinosaur book, and watching Star Wars cartoons. About an hour ago, he was “reading” a Corduroy book to our daughter, who snuggled under his arm and smiled the whole time. He’s learning to read his numbers and can recognize a few words already (including “Jurassic Park”), and I can’t wait to see what this year holds for him as he dives deeper into the world of literature.

Truthfully, there has been a piece of me that worried he wouldn’t be interested in reading. I don’t know why this concerned me so much – he is just now turning three, after all, and my husband is going on twenty-eight and only now reading a series he adores for the first time. Watching my guys, I’ve learned that falling in love with literature happens in its own time, and it can’t be forced.

Kids (and adults) have to be given the space to find the book(s) that change their lives.

The same way no one can predict when you’ll meet the love of your life, or decide to follow Jesus, or when you’ll start the job you love, or when you’ll meet your best friend, there is no formula or “schedule” for finding the books you want to cuddle all night long.

Just because we loved a certain book at a certain age doesn’t mean our kids will adore that book in the same time, or at all. Similarly, the same way we shouldn’t force a student to read Shakespeare because it’s a “classic,” a “timeless tale,” or whatever other buzz phrase you want to use, we shouldn’t force our kids to read anything “just because.”

I’m not advocating for allowing a student/child to avoid homework, or to never learn to read. I’m saying that students/children should be told why a book is significant, rather than “it just is, so read it.” And just because a book is significant to history doesn’t mean it will impact them. If it’s a book that’s special to you, share that with them. Share the stories of reading it over and over again, and laugh along with them – maybe even read it with them (I talked to a friend this week who is going to read a chapter book with her pre-teen step-daughter by passing it back-and-forth with notes in favorite passages.) Find a way to share the joy without forcing them to feel it.

We have to let each reader decide what books are going to be the “classics” to them, the ones they want to read over and over again. We have to give our children the room to love the magic books hold in their own time, and rejoice with them when they learn what we already know:

That books can take you to a different world.

That books can teach you things before you even realize you’re learning.

That books can help you feel less alone.

That books can change the way you live, think, and love.

And that some books contain stories you never want to let go of, even to fall asleep.