Portrait of Jean and Geneviève Caillebotte.
I love it when kids get into the magic of books on their own, whether through pictures (note the dreamy look on the face of Renoir’s little girl, above) or through being read to.
I have heard of people reading to a baby in the womb. We didn’t start that early, but we did start when our kids were babies, and they did the same when they grew up and had children of their own. John still reads to the family even though no one is little now: it’s just a great activity.
My father read to us kids, but his tastes leaned toward the literary. Which often meant depressing stories by Hans Christian Andersen. There was only one of those we liked. It was something about dogs, one of which had “eyes as big as saucers.” He got tired of reading that one. “Don’t you want to try a different one?” he’d ask. But we knew we didn’t like depressing. We did enjoy Kipling’s Just So Stories, which he read with a wonderful variety of dramatic voices. I have a cassette tape of him reading “The Elephant’s Child.”
Now all four grandchildren are good readers, having perhaps picked up the joy their parents and grandparents feel when reading. I don’t like hearing that the 8-year-old’s Spy School book features pills that will explode you if you’re in a situation where you might otherwise be tortured, but she got me to admit I’d probably like reading that book if I were a kid. It hooks you in fast, she reports.
Enjoy the cool work of an artist who is a serious book lover, below.
Photo: Tutt’ Art.
Jonathan Wolstenholme is an British painter and illustrator best known for art inspired by love of old books.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Hi Suzanne’s Mom, As an inner-city educator for many years I created an original and challenging approach to reading.
Love the pictures!
My Mom and I read The Secret Garden together every spring, and I go back to it some years. My Dad wasn’t into the reading thing, alas, nor my aunt—the other folks besides my mom in my nuclear family. Mom made up for it. There was a huge (to my small eyes) red book of fairy and other tales, with which she would regale me when I was home sick. We did some Hans Christian Anderson—the Grimms were aptly named, and she avoided them. However, I had many deAngeli books, to which I still return, particularly Thee Hannah. Can’t remember if she read them to me or not, but they are an indelible part of my childhood, and did much to form my sense of justice, right and wrong.
I lived in a small town in New Jersey for a couple of years in the 70s. My housemate and I welcomed neighborhood kids into our home. We read to them, and also encouraged them to read, though they weren’t very keen on that!! They were mostly on welfare and adults showing interest in them was a novel, or at least rare, occasion. I hope they remember those days as fondly as I do!
Hannah
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What a perfectly splendid comment, Hannah! So glad to learn about this wonderful side of your mother. And I believe that the kids you read to would have remembered it later and maybe tried reading at a late stage.