bfg

Our current bedtime reading is the BFG, by Roald Dahl. One of my favorite books, by one of my favorite authors, and I am thrilled to finally be reading it to Small Person. In fact, her copy used to be mine, and it shows. It's the first big kid chapter book I can remember purchasing on my own. My own choice, my own cash, me taking it up to the counter to have it rung up. The poor paperback is falling apart at the seams. We gingerly open it up every night, tuck in the bits that have come unbound, and dig in to a new chapter.

The BFG, in case you're unaware, stands for Big Friendly Giant. It's the usual Dahl specialty; characters and scenarios that are fantastic but oddly acceptable. With kooky vocabulary to match. It's maybe slightly above Small Person's comprehension level, but she's not complaining, so neither am I. There's a little more interrupting for definitions and other questions, but that's part of the whole reason we read, right? This is better for mom's sanity than re-reading Fox in Socks for the eleventy-millionth time, anyway.

Now that we've started on the chapter books, I've unpacked the boxed ones I've been lugging around. All the books I kept from my childhood, plus whatever I could sneak out of the family bookcases. Small Person's shelves are now full of them; the Borrowers, more Dahl, the whole Anne of Green Gables series, Astrid Lindgren. It might be hard for me to trot through them slowly, chapter by chapter. I'll have to sneak a few out for some quick bedtime reading of my own. It's like mac-n-cheese for the brain; perfect comfort.