I’m hoping ya’ll might be able to talk me down a little here.
We just finished our latest read-aloud and everyone has gone to bed devastated.
Even after decompressing with a stack of funny picture books.
De.Va.Stated.
Here’s the deal.
We read every night, even though both girls then get into bed, turn on their bedside lights and rip through chapter books on their own. They are nine and seven and as far as I can tell, we may be doing this ’til they’re nineteen and seventeen. Not a one of us seems eager to give it up.
Sometimes one of us dozes off — particularly tough when the dozer is the reader.
Sometimes one of us does headstands and kicks over the water glass and acts downright disengaged,
until we threaten to put the book away.
Sometimes one of us cries.
Over the years we’ve read everything from Stuart Little to Ramona the Brave, Anne Shirley to the Sisters Grimm, Whittington to Laura Ingalls Wilder. And, lately, Warriors.
So, here’s my forthright admission.
Fantasy? Not really my thing.
Cat clans? Un-unh.
Warrior codes and ceremonies and fresh kill? No thanks.
But. In spite of myself. I got sucked in.
I am the first to refer to our own housecats as ‘kittypets’ these days… and to make up nicknames that end with ‘paw’ or ‘pelt’… and to call meetings at ‘highrocks’. I’m a total sucker for story, and this one’s got us — all of us — in its claws.
So, tonight, we read waaaaaay past bedtime because there didn’t seem to be a good place to stop until, well, the end.
Which was really, really, really (to the power of ten) SAD.
Seriously, you guys.
The girls were sobbing, shouting out in anger, swearing they’d never read another book like it, sobbing some more.
I mean, we do tend to be a family of feelers but this was kind of extreme even for us.
So we talked.
About the varied reasons for ending the book that way… the possibilities it opened up.
About it being a story. And the fact that it must be a really good story if we were all feeling it this deeply.
About stories echoing real life — even fantastical stories about talking cat clans — and real life is sometimes hard.
And sad.
And then we just bagged the conversation and grabbed the picture books.
Not long after, everyone was asleep.
Well, except for me.
I’m still sitting here musing on the whole thing.
I kind of don’t know what to think.
Plus, my head’s stuffy because I was crying, too.
Is this a beautiful thing — my daughters so full of empathy that they cry out in pain with the characters of a book?
Or was book too much for them, at their age, at their stage of open, fragile, rawness?
Or is this a beautiful thing — my daughters fully delving into the heart of literature, experiencing how deeply and completely it transports?
Or is that the end of this series for us, for now?
Or is this a beautiful thing?
Y’know, as I type this, I think I might be leaning toward the beautiful.
Tonight, our girls were safe, and the feelings were real, honest-to-goodness feelings, but in the context of story rather than real tragedy.
In the context of story — which is often where we first try out some of the toughest feelings imaginable — grief, regret, sorrow, lonliness — along with their counterpoints — relief, thrill, triumph, utter joy. I mean, if we’re lucky.
And maybe that’s what brought me to my knees tonight.
Seeing my daughters wail with heartbreak, and knowing that someday I’d watch them feel this deeply outside of a book.
In real life.
I can’t imagine the stack of picture books we’re gonna need to get through that…
Wow.
And here I was worried that the prologue of the new Penderwicks might be too sad for my daughter, Six. (Although when we did read it out loud, she was a little worried, I was the one who cried.)
I think beautiful wins, too.
Um. That was me, linda urban, above.
Oh, it is OFTEN me crying, while the girls urge me on:
Read, Mama. Read!!!
This idea of books being emotional rehearsal for life (a phrase which I steal from Katherine Paterson) is true even into adulthood. Books allow us to “practice” emotions and experiences we haven’t yet had to pass through and sometimes allow us to finally grieve what we never faced. What a privilege it would be to be that kind of writer. To be able to shepherd someone over the rocky ridges.
And maybe that’s why I’m a writer after all. To give my own soul room to practice, to face things I don’t necessarily want to face, or to own up to my own faults and transgressions.
For a different audience, Warrior might have merely been entertainment. But in this day and age, I think far too often our children are taught to ignore what they feel, even to suppress it. So if story engages them, and gives them emotional practice, amen.
Amen.
I love practice.
Lovely post, Liz. I remember me and many other kids sobbing through the end of Where the Red Fern Grows, as it was read by our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Gracey. She might have been crying too, I can’t remember and was totally focused on me-me-me and no-no-no.
I lean toward the beautiful, too!
I still read aloud with my daughter, who’s 12-1/2. It’s not daily, and sometimes there are a few weeks between books. We jsut started Something to Blog About. She definitely tends toward chick lit. But we slip in a little more serious one occasionally.
Oh, one of the reasons I married my husband was finding out that we’d both been equally distraught over Where the Red Fern Grows. That one really wallops ya…
P.S. I’m going to a small event where Allyn Johnston will be the speaker, and I’m hoping to actually get to exchange a few words with her. Do you still have books coming out with her? Either at Harcourt or S&S? I hope so.
Yes, she’s my shepard 🙂
Tell her we “know” each other and write sonnets together and stuff!
Oh man, and we interrupted it all. Glad you were able to jump back on the
emotive locomotive! Sometimes things are just upside round.
mucho love,
shannon
http://www.roundrobinpress.com
No. You didn’t interrupt. This happened afterwards. Much, much later!! Upside round is right…
I’m leaning towards beautiful, too, in part because it was a shared experience that they will likely remember for a very long time, and in part because any writing that touches you in that way makes for a wonderful experience, even when it’s sad.
Says the mom of S, who cried hard when a certain wizard died in HP and the Order of the Phoenix, and M, who cried hard over a death in Scot Westerfeld’s book, and who is still really, really angry with JK Rowling over a certain twin in the final HP. And says she won’t see that movie whenever it hits the screens. But she has allowed that she may reevaluate that decision.
Oh, yes, mom of S and M. I hear you, and I sympathize mightily with them, too. And I have to say, we talked about it again over breakfast this morning and we are still there, in the heat of it. Small One is just fixated on what we’ll read next (with a preference for funny) but Tall One cried again. “I’m trying to understand why it might have happened this way but I just really can’t,” she said. Which is how life is too…
“Tonight, our girls were safe, and the feelings were real, honest-to-goodness feelings, but in the context of story rather than real tragedy.”
Word.
Jules, 7-Imp