Your favorite books are the books that come to life. It's not so much the words as it is the worlds.
Little Lamb is your favorite. It's a finger puppet book with a lamb poking its white-fleece head through the middle of its cardboard-thick pages. Life is all pink picket fences and sun rays for Little Lamb, imagining what games to play and what animals those rosy-pink clouds look like. But it's not the whimsy that captures your imagination. It's the finger-waggled lamb in the middle, sniffing flowers and chasing butterflies. Plus there's all that gazing.
Your mom has memorized Little Lamb and can 'read' it without seeing the pages. Your mom's voice leaps when Little Lamb leaps. She breathes in deep, comical and swarthy when Little Lamb wanders upon some daisies. And her voice trails to a lilt when the book does what's it's supposed to do at the end and puts you to bed by saying, "Goodnight, Little Lamb, the day is done. Shh!"
So your dad bought Little Lion. Your mom has to quiet him down, since you naturally want to growl and grrr as Little Lion dons a crown and reels in the fact that it's good to be king. You shake with giggles throughout, lions or lambs.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
January 15, 2011
October 11, 2009
Literary kick, musical kick
"I'm not sure if this is baby." Your mom presses her fingers into the firm, cylindrical pouch swelling outward from her belly button.
"I don't know," your dad says.
"Put your hand here. No, here. Do you feel anything?"
Your dad puts his hand on your mom's belly. You kick. Hard. Your dad gives you a solid push back. You kick again.
"What does that feel like? What does that feel like inside?" your dad asks.
"Like little earthquakes," your mom says. "Like little aftershocks from earthquakes."
"That doesn't help me," your dad says.
You kick -- one, two. Your dad taps his fingertips on your mom's belly. He moves it across her, like a horse-galloping spider. You kick some more.
"Here," your dad says to your mom. "I'm just going to read outloud while my hand is on your belly." In the story, Robert Jordan is clinging to Maria, only hours away from blowing up the bridge. "We'll see if baby likes Hemingway," your dad says.
Your dad reads For Whom the Bell Tolls. Your mom would sleep, but grows concerned. You've never kicked this much. But you will also kick when your mom and dad play music featuring violins. Andrew Bird, Beirut, Yann Tiersen. Your mom and dad will wonder then, too, whether you kick because you are learning how to dance, or because you are learning how to cry.
"I don't know," your dad says.
"Put your hand here. No, here. Do you feel anything?"
Your dad puts his hand on your mom's belly. You kick. Hard. Your dad gives you a solid push back. You kick again.
"What does that feel like? What does that feel like inside?" your dad asks.
"Like little earthquakes," your mom says. "Like little aftershocks from earthquakes."
"That doesn't help me," your dad says.
You kick -- one, two. Your dad taps his fingertips on your mom's belly. He moves it across her, like a horse-galloping spider. You kick some more.
"Here," your dad says to your mom. "I'm just going to read outloud while my hand is on your belly." In the story, Robert Jordan is clinging to Maria, only hours away from blowing up the bridge. "We'll see if baby likes Hemingway," your dad says.
Your dad reads For Whom the Bell Tolls. Your mom would sleep, but grows concerned. You've never kicked this much. But you will also kick when your mom and dad play music featuring violins. Andrew Bird, Beirut, Yann Tiersen. Your mom and dad will wonder then, too, whether you kick because you are learning how to dance, or because you are learning how to cry.
August 19, 2009
Book ends
Your dad is reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. He also wrote Everything Is Illuminated. Your mom and dad love that movie. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the kind of novel that is so exquisitely crafted as to call into question its very origins. This isn't so much the crafstmanship of one author as it is the divining of an entire nation's rent and broken heart.
A boy finds a key in an envelope, but he doesn't know what lock it opens. He sets off on a mission to find out. But across the whole of New York City, where the boy lives, there are 161,999,999 locks that the key won't open. Still he opens more doors to a box-of-chocolates variety of people than the key itself ever could.
Your mom insists that your dad finishes reading the books he buys. He doesn't always do that. But if the book has an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist, then your mom's insistence turns into something closer to bullying. No matter what other unread books sit on the shelf, your dad has to finish those in particular. He has to.
Your dad finished reading the Coming of Conan the Cimerrian last night. And while Conan's stories are adult fantasy fiction as envisioned by an overgrown and surprisingly poetic twelve-year-old, otherwise known as Robert E. Howard, that decidedly does not count as a book with an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist.
A boy finds a key in an envelope, but he doesn't know what lock it opens. He sets off on a mission to find out. But across the whole of New York City, where the boy lives, there are 161,999,999 locks that the key won't open. Still he opens more doors to a box-of-chocolates variety of people than the key itself ever could.
Your mom insists that your dad finishes reading the books he buys. He doesn't always do that. But if the book has an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist, then your mom's insistence turns into something closer to bullying. No matter what other unread books sit on the shelf, your dad has to finish those in particular. He has to.
Your dad finished reading the Coming of Conan the Cimerrian last night. And while Conan's stories are adult fantasy fiction as envisioned by an overgrown and surprisingly poetic twelve-year-old, otherwise known as Robert E. Howard, that decidedly does not count as a book with an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)