Mom, I was just reading the Awakening while you were gone

I have a 12-year-old daughter, and a 6-year-old son.  This is not the kind of conversation starter I expect to have on a Sunday morning (not yet, anyway, although I covet any conversation where we can connect about books).

I was formatting the guest post for 5 Minutes for Books by Lisa Catherine Harper.  Last week I posted her review (and giveaway, still live) of A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood.  This post On Reading is about what she could read and couldn't read while pregnant and since becoming a mother.  She also provides an extensive (and quite compelling) list of books that she enjoyed about pregnancy, motherhood, and child development.

Kyle had woken up on this cursed daylight savings lose-an-hour morning and was eating his Pop Tart (oh he still loves Pop Tarts with a passion), and so I went up to run his bath, so he could get in when he was finished.  When I came back downstairs, he had scooted around from his chair to the chair on the end of the table in front of my laptop, which I using to add amazon links to the books on the booklist.

"Mom, I was just reading the Awakening while you were gone" he told me.

I ousted him from my seat and sat back down as his little neck craned around to watch me.  "Right there -- click on 'look inside' then 'first pages.'"

"You read this?"

"Yeah.  The first three chapters.  If I didn't like the chapters, I skipped to the next one.  That's what you should do when you read it."

"What was it about?" I asked, testing him.

"Mostly a parrot.  He spoke Spanish and another language."


I don't think that I've read Kate Chopin's book (which Harper puts in the category "A 19th Century Novel about Motherhood that Might Give You Nightmares But is Still Pretty Important," although I know what it's about (I think -- now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm mixing it up with Madame Bovary, but perhaps because the result is the same??).


The first page was indeed about a parrot speaking another language.  I skimmed through the first 3 short chapters that were shown (which I'm quite sure he didn't read.  There was probably more skipping than reading after the subject moved on from the parrot) and didn't find anything else worthy of discussion.


Maybe he'll become a true lover of literature, after all.  And when he does, his mama will be right here to take his advice on the best way to read it.


*****


If you would like a seasoned mother's advice on reading, be sure to check out Lisa Catherine Harper's great post On Reading.