I love being a parent. There are many wonderful aspects to fatherhood, but one that I’ve been especially enjoying is how it is enriching my reading.
My daughter and I are re-reading A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh
As a child, I didn’t realize just how smart and funny Winnie-the-Pooh is. It’s almost the perfect adult-child read: sweet stories told with language tricks that amuse adults. For adults, there are simple amusements like capitalization of words that carry a special gravity in a child’s world, such as a Very Important Idea, or a Big Decision. There’s the endearing misspelling or misuse of words that convey the charm of childhood.
For a child, there’s the magic of Winnie-the-Pooh and his brave friends. My daughter’s wide-eyed wonder at Pooh’s adventures is priceless.
And I’m even finding that I can successfully take some of these children’s stories into the classroom. Like me, my students enjoy revisiting old favourites from their older, more mature viewpoint, and seeing the subtleties that they had missed before.
