Uh, hi, remember me? Gosh it's been a long time since I posted anything. We were a bit derailed from normal life for a while. Our neighborhood was hit quite hard (but not as hard as many towns in Vermont) with flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Our house is fine, but we had to live elsewhere for about a week while things dried out. Dealing with the aftermath--FEMA, contractors, etc.--became more or less a full time job for a few weeks. And school started. And my freelance work picked up. Basically, life has been nutty since August 28! But things are settling down and we are back to our normal school-year routine for the most part.
Though this entire topsy turvy fall, we haven't quit reading, of course. Once things settled back down, Noah pulled out another old favorite, The Neverending Story, to re-read. Those of you who are around my age will remember the wonderful movie from the 80s, about the little boy Bastian finding the mysterious book about the magical land of Fantasia, and literally becoming part of the story as he reads. Noah and I watched the movie together a while back and he was enthralled with it. I hadn't even realized the movie was based on a classic fantasy novel by Michael Ende, but after watching the movie with Noah a couple of years ago I discovered it. We read it together through many lazy afternoons the summer before last. Although the book is not truly a children's book and is far more complex in story and theme than the movie, Noah was equally enthralled with it. This time around was no different, except that he eagerly anticipated his favorite parts. (The kids has the memory of an elephant!)
About 3/4 of the way through reading this amazing novel, my son did something that I thought was pretty amazing himself. After I read the following sentence: "On every roof and battlement stood elves with gleaming trumpets, blaring away at the top of their lungs," Noah stopped me. "Mom, wait," he said. "Is that two sentences?" I showed him that no, there was a comma separating the clauses. "Oh OK," he said with relief. "Because that wouldn't have made sense as two sentences."
Um, wow, I thought to myself. Talk about a keen sense of language. He has learned the basics of punctuation at school, but the fact that his ear picked up on the way the meaning would have been changed with a difference in punctuation really surprised me. On the other hand, though, maybe it shouldn't. After all, this is a kid who has always had a sharp ear for language and meaning, is extremely inquisitive and analytical, and has been exposed to plenty of good--and a healthy dose of bad--writing. I have already observed the results of this exposure on his sense of story and his oral storytelling skills. Seriously, you should hear the scary stories he makes up for our 13-year old carpooler on the way to school every morning! He creates mood, tone, character detail, plot, rhythm, all on the fly on a 10 minute car ride. It only makes sense that he would start to pay attention to writing at this level.
I resisted the urge to start him on a study of stylistics--the subject of my absolute favorite graduate school course. But, man, did that little observation makes this writer mama proud. I always think of reading together as something I do to foster the love of reading in my children--I had forgotten that it can foster a love of writing, too.
