Hellobee

Since I was a kid I can remember loving books. My dad would read to my sister and me each night, and I have fond memories of sitting on our beds listening to him read to us. He read with enthusiasm and changed his voices for characters, and continued long after we could read the books for ourselves. I remember volunteering in his 4th grade class when I was a teenager, and I couldn’t help but smile as he read the class Charlotte’s Web. That was one of our favorites. As we got older we spent many hours looking for books in libraries and book stores. To this day one of my most relaxing things to do is walk around the book store. I can spend hours wandering in search of the perfect adventure that awaits me within the covers of a book. Even now my father and I share books we have read and pass them back and forth so we can both enjoy the stories. I can’t thank my father enough for this gift. Not only do I have fantastic memories of our times together, but I attribute my love of reading to him.

Before I became a mother I imagined sharing my favorite books with my kids. I thought about some of my favorite picture books like Dr. Suess’s ABC Book or The Monster at the End of this Book. I dreamed of opening up some of those early chapter books and bringing to life the words on the page the same way my father did. Before my boys could even sit up I had tons of books on our shelves ready to read to them. Many of those early books got destroyed as all three of my boys decided board books were a very yummy snack. We did share some of my favorites and they developed their own. I am sure I read Dogs at least a thousand times. I made sure we read most nights. I made silly faces and read with emotion and sometimes even acted out parts. They would laugh and roll around on the floor, and I could tell we were making fantastic memories together. They loved story time and they loved their books.

I am now at a new phase with my kids. They still love to read picture books and look at the illustrations, but we have also moved onto early readers and chapter books. I wanted to continue their love of books and encourage them to sit for longer and pay attention to the stories. I started by letting them pick. Thanks to having some older cousins, they really wanted to read Captain Underpants. (Not my favorite but it got them excited about reading longer stories.) After reading several of those books, I agreed to read one more but after that they would let me pick one. They were a little apprehensive about letting me pick but I made a deal. I told them I would pick one that had been turned into a movie and at the end of the book we could have a family movie night. It has been one of the best deals I have made because I have not been asked to read another Captain Underpants book in over 6 months.

For my first book choice I knew that I had to pick a good one. I wanted it to be one I had loved as a child. I wanted one that had an exciting story with a fair amount of action in it. I was also thinking about the movies that have been made. I needed to make sure they could watch it and that they would enjoy it. I went with James And The Giant Peach. It took us about a week and a half to finish the book. As we were reading I tried to make voices for each character and read with passion. When I ended a chapter and told the boys it was bed time, they always begged for just one more chapter. I was thrilled. At the end of each night we would recap what we had read and do it again before we started reading the next night. I think that really helped them retain the story line and if their attention did happen to drift for a bit, it helped them fill in the blanks.

When we were finished with the book I decided to have a James and the Giant Peach day ready for them when they came home from school. I hung pictures of the bugs on our window so we could compare the descriptions of the characters with the actual bugs. We had some peach yogurt for a snack and I also printed out some coloring sheets and writing practice that had the characters and their names.

Not a great picture but it took me about 5 minutes to print these out and they absolutely loved them. They made me keep them up long after we finished the book.

While they were coloring and working I got started on making their James and the Giant Peach dinner. It wasn’t really a fancy dinner. I made pesto pasta and called in crocodile tongues (that’s what brings the magic to the characters in the story). Then I made a tomato and peach salad. I put out our plastic bugs for some decoration, which scared my mom when she walked in the house. The kids absolutely loved having dinner with their bugs on the table and they ate several helpings of crocodile tongues. While we had dinner we talked about which scenes they thought would be really good in the movie, and which parts they were excited to see. They were so anxious they could hardly wait for me to clean up dinner. During the movie we had some peach pastries with a little vanilla ice cream. They had a fantastic night and they loved the movie. James was singing the songs for weeks and they were even more excited to move on to the next book.

Not everyone likes bugs at the table but it works when your book is all about a little boy’s adventures with his new bug friends.

We went on to read several more books by Roald Dahl including both Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Again we had a movie night with some themed snacks. That was easy — a few chocolates and some milk and we were set. Just before Halloween we moved on to the Wizard of Oz.  Not only did we read the book, but our entire family dressed up as characters from the stories for Halloween. We acted out some of the scenes and had a blast.

We decorated our house like Oz for Halloween with a yellow brick road and some light-up witch legs.

When I said everyone dressed up I meant it. We had both sets of grandparent, aunts and uncles and cousins. Everyone enjoyed being a part of this Halloween and we brought the book to life.

Halloween was so much fun but obviously we can’t do something like that every time we read a book, and not every book has a movie. We read several biographies about Civil War Generals and Presidents (James is a huge history buff). Each time I printed out some coloring sheets to help go along with the books. We looked at the flags of the time, I pulled up pictures of battlefields on my iPad. Simple little things like that have really helped them build a love for the books they are reading and encourages them to find more information once they are done with the book. I love the memories we are making and the love for literature that they are developing.

In my next post I will share how we brought one of my all-time favorite books to life.