Have to Admit I Started to Think I’d Made a Terrible Mistake When Jack the Dog Disappeared in the Creek

By Megan

A good friend of mine, Alice, recently mentioned that she’s reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series to her four-year-old son. She’d told him about the book and sat down to read to him, allowing him to continue playing with some toys as she did so. She said he played for just a few seconds as she started to read and then quickly appeared at her side, riveted by the story unfolding as his mother read.

Now I am an old-fashioned mother, for the most part, so the Alice’s smart idea of reading these favorite old classics to my own four-year-old had me chomping at the bit to get to the library and check out our first installment. I let Bean pick out some picture/story books while we were there, and I tucked MY selection into her library bag after we’d checked them all out. Once at home, as is her custom, Bean took her bag into the family room, pulled out her haul and began to quietly peruse and page through each and every book. I tended to a few things as she looked, and then joined her on the floor among the stacks and picked up the Wilder book (which she’d stuck way over in a corner, away from HER books) and suggested I read her a few pages.

“BUT THAT ONE DOESN’T HAVE ANY PICTURES!” she worried.

(It actually does have a few pictures, but neither of us were aware of that at the time.)

“I’m going to teach you how to make pictures in your mind. You listen to the story and imagine what I’m describing as I read, okay? If you need help understanding what you hear, just ask me. Give it a chance. I think you’re going to love it.”

She was skeptical, but she sat silently and paged through her own books as I began to read the first chapter in a quiet, calm voice. Sure enough, I hadn’t even turned the first page before she’d set aside the picture books and was standing behind me, craning her neck to look over my shoulder, her face already registering curiousity and suspense. I smiled to myself and sent my friend Alice a little mental thank you.

We’ve read one or two chapters of the book every day now for about 4 days. Every once in awhile we run across one of Garth Williams’s beautiful little pencil sketches and we stop our reading to scrutinize it. The illustrations show plenty of detail to inspire conversation but are still simple enough to leave some things to Bean’s imagination.

Thursday we enjoyed Laura’s description of a simple meal of corncakes, salt pork and coffee Ma prepared one evening under the prairie stars. Friday we read a chapter describing how Pa Ingalls (with help from Mr. Edwards) built the family’s first small house with logs he’d cut himself. Friday afternoon, Bean and I baked corn cakes and tried our hands at shaking up some homemade butter from cream. (It was delicious!)  As we sat enjoying corn cakes and molasses (just like Laura had on her corncakes) and fresh butter later that night with Daddy, Bean demonstrated and explained to him how Pa (“He’s their Daddy, Daddy!”) stacked the logs to make the walls of Mary and Laura’s home (I see some Lincoln Logs in our future!). She also shared that Mary and Laura drank water from a shared tin cup as Ma and Pa drank their coffee.

Each day, Bean takes her own little favorite nugget of information away from the chapters we read, and each day she becomes more and more curious and anxious to continue to the story. I’m enjoying the time we’re spending together at this and absolutely adore the conversations it inspires between us. These books are obviously too old for a four-year-old (at least MY four year old) to read on her own, but it’s such a happy surprise (it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is) that she can comprehend and really enjoy it with me even still. I’m a huge proponent of reading to children and do it every day, but I don’t know why I’d never thought of the idea of reading something a little more advanced with her, actually, and I’m really grateful to Alice for mentioning it and bringing such joy to my little family!

Here’s a fairly comprehensive list I found of other children’s classics to enjoy with kids. I bet you’ll see one of your favorites here and maybe you’ll want to share it with your little ones if you haven’t already. As you read, look for simple ideas of fun projects you can use to reinforce and expand the learnings you find on the pages of the book.

I think for me this experience has meant a departure from reading just the picture books that Bean loves, chance to return to my own blissfully imaginative childhood, as well as the perfect combination of bonding time and early education for my sweetest girl and me.

A few of the other books on my list to read with Bean in the near future:

• Stuart Little by E. B. White
• Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
• Peter Pan by James M. Barrie
• Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Check out an interview with Miss Bean in my first official VLOG, at FriedOkra.