Happily Ever After: The Bedtime Story

The bedtime story is a treasured ritual handed down through generations in my family. My mother read to my brother, sister, and me. Mamaw read to her. Great-grandmother Sarah read to Mamaw. I come from a long line of maternal story readers, and I read to my children until they wouldn’t let me anymore. Nevertheless, I do admit—without shame—that I try to cajole my way into reading The Night before Christmas, aloud and with feeling, every Christmas—at least some of the Christmases when I am able to make everyone feel guilty enough. Now I have my grandson, Boone, as my Ace in the hole when it comes time for The Night before Christmas. He’s still young enough to think I’m fabulous. So there!


I dearly loved to hear my mother read to us at bedtime. Every night, Mom gathered Tomi, Ben, and me into one of our rooms and chose a book. That woman had fortitude. Our readings were laced with, “Ben, stop hitting your sister!” “Sit down, Tomi, and listen.” “Karen, stop squishing Ben.” (Ben always accused me of squishing him if I sat too close, but he hogged the view of the pictured page. I rest my case.) In spite of that nightly struggle, she read: “Emmeline! Where have you been?” from A. A. Milne’s “The Good Little Girl.” At the end, the three of us would chorus, “And the queen says my hands are perfectly clean!” at which point we dissolved into a laughter that took a few moments to quell. She read The Brownie Stories to us from the same book from which Mamaw read to her. But Mom was magic with “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” from Kipling’s Just So Stories. When she did Crocodile’s voice, she whispered in a most sinister fashion: “Come hither, Little One.” The Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake’s language of a very large vocabulary was read with a wonderful sibilance. When the Elephant’s Child had his nose clamped between the crocodile’s pointy teeth, Mom read his plaintive words while holding her nose for the full nasal effect. It was divine. I copied her style when I read to my own children and do the same for this next generation. I’m not quite as good as she was, but I do a passable job. Regardless of my expertise, it is entertaining for all of us.


I don’t get to read to Boone as often as I like as we are several states apart. However, I do have Tomi’s three grandchildren for a weekly audience. Since my most cherished childhood memory is listening to my mother read “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” I can recite large portions of from memory. Since my children loved this story as much as I did, I bought the book for my six-year-old grand-nephew, Will, and I have the pleasure of reading to him. He thinks it a bit long, but I do all the animals in different voices and persist. I think I’m wearing him down, even though it is a book with no colored pictures and only one or two black-and-white sketches. I do not surrender easily. Will and I have a deal: I read two books of his choosing, and then he listens to one of mine. When he was younger, I lovingly—all right, sometimes begrudgingly--read about trucks and dinosaurs, even heavy machinery, just for the chance to read from Kipling or A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six or a Dr. Seuss of my choosing. We now take turns reading, he to me and I to him.


Five-year-old Carter, named after my daughter, is not an easy audience and definitely no fan of a picture-less story, but I finally found the Fancy Nancy series and am winning her, too. Carter, like Fancy Nancy, appreciates an ensemble. Last week, she wore a green and white ballet dress with a very full skirt, multi-striped knee socks, hot pink shoes, and accessorized with a red patent leather purse. Carter is a very fancy girl. When she was younger, she was the kind of story listener who wore down some less intrepid than I, but I remembered Mom’s persistence. At one point, Carter only allowed one page of a book read aloud--over and over--or she let me start a book, then chose another for me to begin. It wasn’t easy, but I read whatever she would endure, and now we are up to two or three books on the nights I babysit. In the not too distant future, I plan to trot out Kipling again. I am not a quitter.

Three-year-old Charlie is currently into train books, but he has a few other favorites, including a favorite of every child to whom I’ve ever read: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. Okay, so Charlie doesn’t fully appreciate the rhythmic lilt I give to the story. He likes it because he is quite fond of monkeys. I’m all right with that.


When Boone was born, I gave him Kipling’s Just So Stories, A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young, favorites of mine and all of my children. I gave him John’s favorite book--Old Hat, New Hat; Cartier’s most loved--Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb; Gavin’s choice--The Things We Saw on Mulberry Street, and his mother Samantha’s--Green Eggs and Ham. Boone, who was not quite 18-months-old when I last read to him, is a very good audience. I started reading to him on his first day home, and yes, it was “The Elephant’s Child.” He was three days old. How could he have protested? He, like many children who have experienced books from birth—his parents read to him nightly--will look at books himself during the day, from time to time. That love of books begins early. Lately, he’s a bit of a menace to pop-up books, but all others are carefully tended and loved.


I taught English for many years and was always so sad when I heard a student profess a hatred of reading. I can understand why some may not gravitate to some of the required novels. Crime and Punishment isn’t for everyone. But when people tell me they detest reading in general, it breaks my heart. Those children missed so much young and may continue to miss more as they grow up, unless something catches their fancy. I am eternally grateful to J. K. Rowling for her creation of Harry Potter. Those books alone have roped a whole new generation into a love of reading that they will carry with them throughout their lives.


Read to your children. That is a gift that costs nothing if you borrow books from the library and little if you buy them yourselves. Those readings are magic to the young and cherished memories for the old. Fostering a love of reading is a gift beyond price. For me, it has been a life-long love with very happily-ever-after memories.