Our Perfect Non-Reader likes fantasy stories, with magic and mysteries and whatnot, which is a Good Thing. On the other hand, it’s a Good Thing to expand the proverbial a bit, so we try to sneak in a non-genre book every two or three Bedtime Books, largely with reasonable success. And it certainly hasn’t slowed her down on the dragons and time-travel fare any. Although, oddly enough, she is on one of her non-fiction kicks, where she takes from the library three or four large illustrated books on a topic of interest and scours them for tidbits. She knows more about samurai armor than I do, which isn’t all that surprising, but still. Is that a milestone in parenting, when your child gets interested enough in some topic (some actual historical or physical topic, not a fictional series) that she knows more than you do?
Well, and I’m certain that a milestone in parenting must be when you read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and identify not with Claudia or Jaime, nor with Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but with the frantic parents of the missing children. Seriously, I couldn’t enjoy all the wonderful stuff in the book because the children had gone missing and the parents didn’t know where they were. After several days, when they do laundry, all I can think of is that the parents have now spent however-many days on the search, not how the kids are both handling themselves well and turning their underwear grey.
The Perfect Non-Reader loved it, though, only read ahead a little bit, and has been rereading it in the week or two since we finished. So that’s all right.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.