Reading

Today's topic for Wordfull Wednesday is Learning to Read and our Favorite Children's Book. Visit Chocolate on my Cranium for more Wordfull Wednesday.

I don't remember much about actually learning to read. I do have one memory of asking my mom how to spell the letters. I started at the beginning and asked, "How do you spell A?" I think it took a few minutes for my mom to explain that you don't spell letters, letters spell words. I remember reading from Dick and Jane books in first grade. And I remember that I loved to read. I used to take as many books as I could with me to bed at night, until after a few nights I would have stacks of books on my bed. My dad really didn't like this, so he built a bookshelf tall enough that I could reach it from my top bunk. I don't remember if it helped or not!

I did have some favorite books as a child and they are still some of my favorite children's books. The first is Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. I just LOVE that book. I love the illustrations, the story, the characters. I love knowing that there really are swan boats in the Public Garden in Boston. Someday I'm going to visit Boston and do all kinds of neat things, but one of the first on my list will be to ride on a swan boat!

Another favorite of mine was the Francis Books by Russell Hoban. Again, I love the illustrations and the stories and I love that Francis in not a perfect little girl. She gets scared in her dark bedroom, she "runs away" when her baby sister arrives, she decides that bread and jam is the only thing to eat. But she always learns from her mistakes, and her parents always love her.

One more favorite. My grandmother gave me Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein for my birthday one year and I loved it. I read it all the way through in a pretty short amount of time and then kept going back to read my favorites and even memorized some of them. Now I really enjoy reading another Shel Silverstein book, Runny Babbit, with my kids. It cracks me up!