Bringing the Story to Life

Pin and Jade in the pond with the turtle and bull frog on the ends

The hag's cottage

The castle

For the past few weeks, Dave has been reading The Hobbit at night to the kiddos. Each evening at dinner they recount the tale to me and talk about what happened the night before. They enjoy this time with their Daddy even if it is peppered with jumping, interrupting and general wiggly behavior. He is adapting to the bedtime routine, but I miss sharing stories with the kiddos. We usually have an audiobook in the car, but I keep gathering interesting chapter books from the library. These piles of books have been sitting unshared. Eamon often reads them and tells me which I need to read aloud. One he overlooked recently was The Prince of the Pond.

I started this short chapter book one evening this week while Dave was busy at bedtime. The kiddos loved the story and didn't want me to stop. The next morning we continued the story. Aine began crafting her own pond, hag's cottage, well and castle. She brought out some animals and people to add to the story. With the help of Benton, they reenacted the story for most of the morning. They talked about the story and other possible endings. Benton decided he wanted to raise his own tadpoles, and Aine wanted to know the fate of the characters even after the book ended. Their individual interests led us to the library. Benton found books on frogs, tadpoles, and cicadas. He picked a few to bring home. Aine was more concerned about the characters and spoke at length with the librarian about the existence of other books in the tale. I really like when a book works so well for our family on such a variety of levels.