A New Take On Reading Aloud

My best friend Mint and I were discussing the miraculous fact that I recently finished reading a book. Despite all that is on my plate, taking care of my toddler and general life duties, I was able to find the time to read.

She asked me how this was made possible. I told her that I read in short spurts; while my son was napping or immersed in individual play.

She then imparted to me that her mother used to read aloud entire novels to her as a child despite whether or not they were age appropriate; this was her mother's way of satisfying her own literary cravings. For example, Mint was read the works of Agatha Christie, many vampire novels, the complete works of Shakespeare and various historical non-fiction books about the queens of England.

A lot of the material she genuinely enjoyed, but some of it was too risque for her to hear at the time.

This leads me to my anecdote of the day. My son has recently begun to recognize that objects falling into the category of "book" span beyond the baby board book. Today, he took a novel, that I had gotten out from the library, and handed it to me. So I asked him:

"Do you want me to read this to you?"
He replied "Dee!" Which I took to mean "Yes."

So I read him a page of the novel. He listened for a bit and then ran off to play with his toys.

I like the idea of reading adult fiction to him and will continue this practice. But unlike Mint's mom, I think I'll keep the material age appropriate.