Books are important for children. I can’t even describe or recall all of the wonderful things our son has learned about the world he inhabits through books. Even the most simple things like the names of animals or that a tree is different from a dog. He’s even figured out how to identify guitars (and, in fact, calls the harps that animated angels tend to hold “guitars” as well). These children’s books are clearly important to his development as a person. His recognition of the ideas and items in books has expanded vastly upon multiple readings. He’s especially learned a great deal about some of his books by reading other books. Sometimes he learns something in a different way from another book and is then able to apply to an older book that he didn’t understand on first reading. Learning at work.
Recently our son has really gotten into books. Last night he got into another type of book entirely. Somewhere in some box he found a book that sang a Christmas song if you pressed the button on a star in the top right corner. This book is has an incredibly thick final page because it is full of wires, a small speaker, batteries, and (inevitably) a lot of lights to blink along with the song. If it sounds like I’m making fun of the book I’m really not. It’s lovely (if annoying when played 50 times in a row) and certainly gives children something interesting to consult. I sang the song to our son for a good number of those 50 replays and he seemed to like it. When I stopped singing he tried to intone the sounds himself. That was something to behold: a very young child singing you a Christmas song because you’d lost interest after the first or second time through it. Each page has different lyrics to tell a story but my favorite lyrics are now those tones sounded by our child. Heavenly. Angelic even. If only angels carried little guitars.