Play It Again, Samantha: On Re-Reading

Late one August, a returning 6 year old raced into the library, found her favorite book and exclaimed, "Hey! This book smells WAY different that last year." She promptly checked it out -- for about the 10th time.

There is a 7 year old boy who checks out the same book, Eyewitness Spy, every week. Once in a while he returns it, but after a week or two he borrows it again. His parents haven't complained, at least to me. Perhaps they are sympathetic to his need to re-read it or to hear it again. I hope so.

Re-reading can be puzzling to grownups but not to kids. I had to re-read The Island of the Skog by Steven Kellogg and Hangdog by Graham Round (out of print) aloud to my younger son. Over and over. And even though we all know we must tolerate this endless re-reading, it is hard to approach a book with freshness on the 96th go. I occasionally did funny voices or messed with the endings ("NO! Stop that! Read it RIGHT!"), but like a good parent, I heaved a big sigh and gave it my best.

Now and then I see these children's counterparts in our high school -- there goes the little girl, now 15, who used to borrow A Kitten's Year every week--for the whole year. She's now holding The Odyssey. The girl who kept borrowing a biography of Adolf Hitler in the 5th grade is now in college, studying philosophy and the nature of evil. They really do move on.

My colleague Anna sent me a terrific blog posting from a dad who reads aloud -- and re-reads aloud -- some of those incredibly tiresome pink-sparkly-feather-fairy books to his daughter. They almost make him gag. As he writes, "But my kid LOVES those books with a passion. So I get over it – and like a real man, I read them to her." He provides some hilarious advice to other dads on reading to their daughters.

One perceptive comment on that same blog noted,

"A child's world is saturated with uncertainty and newness. Perhaps as older readers, we dive into books for adventure, excitement and really wild things. But even so, if the day has been hard or the week too long, I turn back to the books I have always read and loved, because they are comforting and familiar -- like going home and having The Ur Mom make mac and cheese."

These intimate, shared moments where parents read aloud and then re-read aloud, allow a child to wiggle with anticipation. She can have the satisfaction of making a prediction -- because she already knows the ending! So keep re-reading aloud to your young child, and never criticize an emerging reader for endlessly re-reading. Enjoy the mac and cheese.