I have a houseful of children this week, as we’ve added four friends to the mix for a few days.  (That makes seven, if you’re counting.)  So far, it’s been a pretty great time, but there isn’t much left over for writing, so I’ll keep this quick.

Just wanted to share with you all this fun little packet of stickers I found at Wal-Mart last week.  The second I saw it, I knew I had to have it.

  
See that little fox?  That was the true selling point.  That and the $3 price.  So much cuteness.  I brought it home, thinking of fun storytelling times with little girls (did I mention the houseful of children?) and then I had to spend two days beating my daughters off with a stick until I had time to take a couple of pictures.  As soon as I took these, they went to town.

It has two little backgrounds to work with:

  
And then four pages of darling little stickers to make all the action:

 
The orange racoon!  The pink fox!  The funny little frog thing!  The hedgehog!  I don’t know what adventures they’re all going to get up to, but if there isn’t some fighting over apples and falling off of logs, I’ll be disappointed.
The stickers themselves really do appear to be reusable, can be peeled off and moved around and rearranged, which is perfect for storytelling.

Three dollars, people.  Just thought you should know.

And happy last week of July!  Next week we’ll be going back to school, so this houseful of children will drop from 7 to 0, at least for a few hours each day.  

Oh, glorious quiet!  Oh, tremendous pile of work.

See you all then!

There’s this huge sign on a main road near my house.  It says, “Can Your Four-Year-old Read This?” There’s some fine print underneath it to the effect of “If not, why not? Enroll them in our crazy private school and they will.”

Every time I drive past that place, I want to burn it to the ground.

I’d like to say that is because of my high principles regarding education and the preservation of childhood, but that would only be one quarter true at best. The real reason it kindles my normally well-controlled rage is that my six-year-old can’t read it.  (That and the fact that the sign is smug and awful, but mostly the six-year-old thing.)

My beautiful youngest child, the most original person I know, has not been quick to learn to read. 

I blame all the stories.

I’ve posted several times here about Lucy, who just turned six and will start first grade in August, and her love of stories. Last week I gave you a sample of the weird and wonderful way her mind works. She is pretty clearly the most creative of my three children, and that is really saying something. 

And yet. She’s not that interested in learning how to read.

Don’t get me wrong. She loves books. Loves them. She loves the idea that stories are inside of them. She likes the idea of someday reading. She just doesn’t want to learn to read.

It’s the stories. I’m serious.

Here’s the thing: right now, the slow sounding out of words is getting in the way. She wants a story, and reading it herself is the slowest way to get one. 

There are a half dozen faster ways. Someone can read to her. She can flip through the pictures and make one up based on what she sees (this one is actually her favorite). She can toss the book aside and invent a story out of her head. She can ask someone else to make one up for her. There are several people in our house to choose from.

  
Believe me, her version of what Hello Kitty is going to do will be way more entertaining than whatever is written in this book.

So. She went to kindergarten. We did all the homework. We plowed through the little phonics books (most of which, gasp, don’t even contain actual stories!). And every single minute of it has been painful and horrible.

She is learning. Just exactly enough to be on the low end of normal for her grade level. But she is not excelling. She did not test high enough on standardized tests to get into the high ability program her brother and sister are in and where anyone who knows her can tell you she belongs. 

 Why I am I telling you this? I’m not publicly shaming my kid or unburdening my deepest fears or even humble bragging (much).  I just passed through a time this year of worrying about this issue, and I’ve finally gotten the monkey off my back, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I’m not the only one who worries about this stuff.

I will not be enrolling my daughter in the horrible private school down the street. I will not be spending my summer pushing her through reading courses.  I will possibly be defacing that sign in the middle of the night. 

Here’s why:

1. The research does not support the current craze for early reading.  You can read about this here, or here, or here. Or any one of a dozen other places. All the studies show that early reading has positive effects on school performance only for a very short time. After a couple of years, there is no difference between the performance of early readers vs. later readers. Long story short, this isn’t going to affect her life after another year or two.

2. Anecdotal evidence tells me the narrative intelligence she’s developed will be more than enough to turn her into a great reader when she’s ready.  My oldest daughter, who is ten and starting fifth grade in August, was a late reader, too. At the time I mostly attributed that to the fact that she was learning two languages at once, so I didn’t worry about it as much. (I still worried some because first child. Also, To a bibliophile there is nothing more terrifying the the idea that your kid might not love to read.) Worry or no worry, the fact remains that she didn’t learn to read on her own until halfway through first grade, which for her was age 7. This in spite of the fact that she has no learning disabililities and is highly intelligent.  She just wasn’t ready. But now? Now she has stacks of books everywhere and has to be nagged to turn off the light at night and can talk books with you for hours. This in spite of the fact that she is naturally extroverted and craves all things people and motion and excitement. This girl was raised on story, and in retrospect, I was ridiculous to waste a single second worrying that she wouldn’t love books or be successful in school. 

3. It’s historically ridiculous that I’m even referring to this as “late reading.” When I was in kindergarten, no one learned how to read. I learned in first grade and didn’t start reading chapter books on my own until later than that. Did you? People didn’t used to even start school until they were seven. There are rumors that Einstein didn’t learn to read until he was nine. Those rumors are likely untrue, but there are also reports that he never wore socks, which is  likely true, and I think has some bearing on this matter because my daughter also hates to wear socks. I’ve lost track of my point… Oh yes the point is that we worry about too many things these days. 

If your four-year-old can read, I congratulate you. If she just makes things up from the pictures, I congratulate you, too. If your ten-year-old can play concertos, I applaud your work. If your ten-year-old sings off key in the shower, I applaud you, too. Their lives have story and music, which means they have meaning and joy. Good for you.

Go tell them a story. It will all work out. 

True statement: Getting down the hill is much easier than getting back up.

However, when it’s muddy and slippery and rocks tip just a little under your feet, you’re still pretty glad to reach the creek at the bottom and stick your toes in the cool flow and rest up for the return journey. 

  
 This has all the makings of a wonderful metaphor, clearly, but for today we’re just stick to what actually happened. 

Lucy: How can Papi walk so much faster than the rest of us on the rocks?

Me: Because he’s sure-footed. That’s why they call him Papi Goatfoot.

Lucy: Oh! Goat foot because goats never fall down on the mountain?

Me: Exactly.

Lucy: It’s like the story of the wise old goat.

Me: …

Me: I don’t think I know that one. How does it go?

Lucy: Okay. Well. Once there was a rabbit. And, um, it was up on a mountain and it went up to the edge of a big cliff and wanted to go down. It said, “I could just jump off here.” But the wise goat said, “You shouldn’t do that. Go down this other way.” But the rabbit didn’t listen. It jumped off anyway. And then the goat went around and down a little ways to where there were some stairs. It climbed down, and when it got to the bottom, there was the rabbit, dead from the long fall.

Me: Wow. That rabbit really should have listened to the wise goat.

Nate: Even though they have such big ears, rabbits never listen. They are the most ironic of animals.

Lucy: True. Now you make up a story, Papi.

True Statement: Lucy’s stories are a hard act to follow.

I mean, a wise old goat and a dead rabbit. Have the mental image? Now you go. Story. Now.

Nate: Once upon a time there was a wide-mouthed froggy. 

I’m going to assume you all know the story of the wide-mouthed frog. If not, click here. 

Ellie, who is ten and always gets a joke, rolled her eyes. Lucy, who was expecting an ending to a story and not a punchline, puzzled over that one for a while. By now, we were climbing the hill, though. It is a steep hill.  

  

True Statement: Climbing a steep hill does not help you puzzle through things clearly.

Lucy: Okay, Mommy, your turn. Tell a story.

Me: Um, pant, pant, um… Once upon a time there was a pig.  

I’m not typing out that whole story. Let’s just say it wandered around and the animals did not appreciate the pig’s whining and the pig dies at the end. 

True Statement: Climbing a steep hill tends to make you think about death more than you normally would.

Lucy: Let’s take a rest. Look, Gramma’s down there resting. Gramma! You want to tell a story now?

Gramma: Not while I’m climbing.

Lucy: Okay, I’ll go again. Once upon a time there was a cow…

I’m not going to lie. The cow died at the end, too. On the bright side, we were much closer to the top by the time of its demise.

Lucy: I need another rest. Look! Gramma is resting again, too.

Ellie: It’s okay, Gramma. I used to always be the last one up, too. I had to rest a lot.

Me: I guess you got a lot stronger this year.

Ellie: I think I was just distracted by the stories.

True Statement: There’s nothing like a story to take your mind off the huge hills you have to climb.

Equally True Statement: You should never believe me when I say I’m not going to turn something into a metaphor.

  
The last part of the hill is the steepest. No one told a story. Lucy did find the breath to comment, however.

Lucy: All our stories today were about animals.

Me: I guess some days are just like that.

True Statement: I can’t focus on catching my breath and also come up with interesting things to say.

Me: A bunch of the animals died, too.

Yes, I’m unoriginal and morbid while climbing.

Lucy: Well, that’s just life. Especially for animals. I mean, you never hear about someone killing a person so they can eat them. But animals…

True Statement: My daughter may also be morbid, but she has no problem coming up with interesting things to say while climbing.

Me: Oh look! We’re at the top! 

Lucy: My legs hurt. Why aren’t we at the car?

Me: Not far now! And remember what happened to the pig who whined too much in the woods.

Lucy: If you tooK me up by the road and let someone take me, they wouldn’t take me to a farm and eat me, they would take me to an orphanage. 

Me: True. So, moral of the story: don’t whine in the woods.

Lucy: No, that’s the opposite of what I said. If you carried me to the road, I would be in a car.

True Statement: You always tell stories at your own risk. There’s no controlling what conclusions your listeners will draw.

Equally True Statement: That’s why I’m never going to stop.

“Oh, no! The Walrus got out of his cage! Where is he going?”

I was hauling a carload of kids (my girls and their friends) to church last Sunday.  The five-year-old had found the magnetic zoo I recently picked up at the Goodwill and stuck in the car for just such a time as this.  She was happily placing the animal magnets in their places on the metal pages.  And out of their places, apparently.

The ten-year-olds picked up the conversation.

“How could a walrus escape the zoo?”

“It would be pretty hard for them to run away. Can you imagine a walrus waddling down the street?”

“What would you do if you found a walrus in your backyard?”

So it began.  The what-if game.

“What if you woke up and a walrus was in your yard, Mom?”

“I’d seriously wonder how it got there.”

“It waddled away from the zoo!”

“It fell out of an airplane!”

“It swam through interconnecting canals!”

“Where exactly do I live? Venice?”

“What would you do, though?”

“Take lots of pictures.  Pour water on it.  It would probably be hot. Call animal control.”

“Would animal control know what to do with a walrus?”

“Probably not, but I’m guessing they would know who to call.”

“What if it was a lion that escaped from the zoo?  What would you do?”

“Scream. Run inside.  Lock all the doors and windows. Scream some more. Call 911.”

“What if it was a tiger?” “What if it was a hippo?” “What if it was a kangaroo?”

“Why do all your answers involve locking yourself in the house and calling animal control?”

“What if it was an elephant? Locking yourself inside wouldn’t be enough! I would crush your whole yard!”

“What if it was a cheetah? Would you race it?”

“Why are you locked inside the house again?”

This conversation lasted the entire twenty minute drive and then was picked up the minute we got in the car to go home and lasted all the way back.  We laughed. We mocked. We debated the wisdom of calling police versus animal control versus the zoo itself.  We speculated on how animals could get away.  We imagined which ones we would fear and which we wouldn’t.  We projected how they would act if they found themselves in an urban neighborhood.  We agreed that it would be best not to keep bananas or raw meat in our house, in  case it encouraged them to try to break through the windows.

Escaped zoo animals are always hungry, obviously.

You could have written about forty hilarious short stories about the scenarios from that one “what if” game.

In fact, I promised them I would a poem about walruses and how they aren’t very good at sneaking around.  It’s to be called “Walruses Don’t Make Good Spies.”

Kids’ lives are an endless “what if?”  “What will happen if I walk barefoot on this hot sand?” “What will happen if I swing this bat near my brother’s head?” “What will happen if I feed the dog chili peppers?” “What will it taste like if I put pickles on my peanut butter sandwich?” “Exactly how mad will Mom be if I eat fourteen cookies?” “What if we build a treehouse out of cardboard?” “What if my birthday party includes water balloons and pinatas?” “What if whoever loses the race has to jump up and down and shout that they are a monkey?”

When was the last time we got in on the fun?  When was the last time we just let ourselves run free in the realm of ridiculous possibilities?

It’s just another form of storytelling, really.  The ‘What if” story.   Kids supply the situation. You supply the action.

And it’s all imagination, so you can run inside and call animal control, or you can make a whip out of your leather belt and go crazy, if you prefer.

Either way, there’ll be a rhino in your backyard, so you’ve already won.

(Though your garden, I’m sad to say, has lost.  We all agreed on that point.)

(Photo above by Hal Brindley, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)