What We Read This Week (16/2/25)

This whole “modelling reading real books yourself” thing is great. I sit on the sofa, have that aaahhhhhhhh moment that comes when you suddenly realise you have been standing and walking and pushing a pram and walking and standing for the last… four hours? Can that be right? Four hours, and you sit down and put your feet up, pick up your book in order to read just a little bit while children are otherwise engaged, and maybe three lines in (but already you are lost in the book), you hear a child’s voice high above you saying sweetly, “I need a cuggle” and as you look up, preparing to envelope them in your arms and enjoy the squishy solidity of a preschooler, there is a hefty child jumping onto you and landing with knees in your sternum. They laugh and bounce as you groan, then, like a magician pulling a rabbit, pull a book out of nowhere and say firmly, “Read me”. 

“Read to you?”

“Read. A. MEEEEE”. Does a Face, this one with eyebrows up and pointed lips. It’s very subtle. It reminds you of a stern librarian. So you read her the story. 

Who could resist? So Goodbye Baby Moon is read and reread and the moon is turned on and the book is reread and then she magically pulls out another book, this time from the table. You’ve seen it coming. You are partway through Bluey and Bingo’s I Love My Family when the child picks up another book. The Look. Eyeballing you as you start to read Tabby McTat. Doesn’t stop staring at you as you keep reading and she stalks her way across your lap, climbs onto the sofa arm and screams, “MAMMYYYYYY!     HOLD. My. HANNNNNND” before launching herself onto the mini sofa which is, oddly, now parked at the perfect place for her to cannonball from my sofa arm onto the mini sofa while dodging the very solid walls of the hallway.

You return to reading your book, Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé by Joanne Harris. About one line in, children are fighting over who gets to jump onto the sofa next and you remember the sheets need to be changed and you realise that if afternoon tea is to make it to the park, then baking is necessarily imminent. 

The next several pram outings have a book buddy, The Three Little pigs goes everywhere with you for days, and is read right way up and right way down. Your parents send Julia Donaldson books to E for her birthday and you hear the girls reading them to each other using voices and drama and your heart is happy.