Food for Thought

From an early age, it was clear that my son was a boy with an expansive imagination. When he was just four years old, he told me that he was never bored as long as he had his brain. And, in fact, his favorite playmate is most often his imagination and the endless games he creates for himself.

I read to him each night, a tradition that started the moment he was born. It's a habit that we continue today, as he approaches the ripe old age of nine. Whatever book we are reading together becomes the source of conversations between us as we speculate about the characters' motives and the narrative path of the story. I share many of the books of my childhood with him but I also enjoy new stories.

But it doesn't end there; he's become a voracious reader on his own. And in the books he selects to read, I can see the world of his imagination at work. He likes stories with history in them (especially pirates, knights and medieval castles, and, more recently, American pioneers). Those interests often become the subject of his games and the dialogue of his play. I can see that they feed his imagination.

Since I began reading in the third grade, books have provided me with comfort and solace as well a happy entertainment. My teaching is infused with storytelling, which I believe is a function of my reading mind. As a parent, nothing has brought me the satisfaction that I get from sharing a love of reading with my son. When he sits down to read, I feel like I have given him the most important gift in his life. In those books, I am nourishing his soul and feeding his brain. You know...the one that saves him from boredom.