Gorky

March 30, 2007 | Filed Under Main |

Ah, yes - the title.

Gorky Rises is one of my favorite children’s books - one I used to read to my son all the time. The author and illustrator is William Steig, who is well known as both an author of children’s books and as an illustrator for New York magazine for many years. Most people probably know him as the creator of Shrek. Well, we never read that one but I can highly recommend Gorky, Sylvestor and the Magic Pebble, Roland - The Minstral Pig and Dominic. These books are simple (but not stupid) and full of imagination, yet grounded in their own reality. AND just long enough to be a satisfying bedtime read (except for Dominic which is more long form. Gorky, by the way, is a frog.

One thing about reading to a child - Do It! But don’t expect any long term gain from the excercise. Rule One of Parenting must be there are no rules. My wife and I read to our son from the very beginning. When he was little more than six months, I read him HOWL (NOT the whole thing!). I would recite the Jabberwocky to him regularly (still the only poem I know by heart). As he grew - we hit three stages of reading: The story as necessity (HAD TO HAVE IT). The story as a choice (have a story or stay up another half hour. You can’t have both.) The last stage was “Dad, I’m too old for a story”. This occurred before we were half way through with Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. I was so crushed, I had to wait until the movie came out to find out what happened. Then after all this reading - stories, poems, books - a weird thing happened. He doesn’t like reading. Just not all that interested… which of course makes school work a bit dicey.

Kind of not what I had in mind all those years. See what I mean by no rules?

share: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • NewsVine
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
tags: none

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name

Email

Website

Comments