The Stories That Make Up Our Story

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

~ Dr. Seuss

Reading has always been very important to me. I love words, and I love Ryan, so it

reading to him just seemed a natural fit. I loved reading to him. As long as he would

sit still and listen (and that got more difficult as he aged), I would read to him.

I read Goodnight Moon to my belly almost every night for five months. I don’t

remember why I read that particular book. Someone had given it to me as a gift,

I suppose, and I instantly loved it. It’s so simple, and simple is beautiful. It was

a board book. I wish I had kept that old worn copy, but Ryan enjoyed chewing

on it just a little too much for it to have stood the test of time.

Goodnight stars

Goodnight air

Goodnight noises everywhere

And then there was Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. This was not a

favorite of mine, but Ryan absolutely loved that book. He had me read it to him

over and over. And over. And over. He noticed if I tried to skip a page or dozed off

while reading. He loved the page at the end that shows Little Bear and his mother

going down one side of the mountain and Little Sal and his mother going down

the other. “There they go,” he would whisper. He loved that book.

When Ryan started to explore reading on his own, Danny and the Dinosaur by

Syd Hoff and The Diggingest Dog by Al Perkins were the clear winners. He had

so much fun reading those or making up his own story as he turned the pages

and pretended to read. He made me smile with both.

When he were in about 4th grade, we read the first Harry Potter book together.

Neither of us was very impressed. It was alright. We just didn’t jump onto the

bandwagon and never made it to the second book.

Enter Artemis Fowl.

That clever little criminal was the subject of our next read-aloud, and he won

Ryan's heart and imagination. We read the first one together, but Ryan tore through

the next few books on his own. I don’t remember if he read the entire series

(or even how many there are), but he sure enjoyed what he read.

Our next read aloud (and the last that I remember) was Kate DiCamillo’s

The Tale of Despereaux. Oh, what a beautiful book. I absolutely loved that

Ryan loved it as much as I did. I hope that he gets to enjoy reading it aloud with

a little one someday.

The first sentence in the book’s jacket says, “This is the story Despereaux Tilling,

a mouse in love with music, and stories, and a princess named Pea.” Even the

book jacket is well written. Maybe it was Despereaux’s love of music that

tugged at Ryan. Maybe even at that age, he knew he had music in his soul.