So, Neils is 4 now, starting to read and recognize words, and has always enjoyed listening to stories. If he’s bored in the car that’s always his first request, “Mom, will you tell me a story?” Last week I checked out a CD called “Classic Stories for Boys and Girls” from the library by Mark Binder, a storyteller. No book to accompany it, just stories. Oh my goodness. It was fabulous. I loved listening to it. I knew I had a winner when I slipped it into my Mac for Neils to have something to occupy his time for a minute (while I got his little brother out of a pickle), and forgot what he was doing. For an hour. I remembered when he finally came upstairs and said, “I want to listen to some more stories, we missed the first three,” as I had started him off with a familiar favorite, Jack and the Beanstalk. Here’s a link to his website for those interested: http://www.markbinder.com/ (Note: the CD we borrowed did not have the last story he has listed on the track listing, which is “Abu Hassan’s Great Fart.” I’m not overly disappointed.)

So I started thinking, maybe Neils is ready for books with fewer pictures? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first thing that came to mind, so off to the library we went. We started to read. We read a chapter or two, and Neils asked me to continue. I read through chapter nine and had to stop to get the baby (Keane). I read while he nursed. I kept reading until lunch. Neils was satisfied to take a break, so long as we pretended to be the Bucket Family. Then Neils wanted to pick up where we’d left off that evening. At the end of the day, we’d read 26 chapters… about 125 pages. We polished off the last five chapters today. As we began reading (keep in mind, it had been a day or two since we left off), Willie Wonka remarks that there are just two children left. Neils remarks, “but they started with five, what happened to all the other children?” So I retorted, well, what happened to Veruca Salt? “She went down the garbage chute.” And what happened to Violet Beauregard? “She turned into a blueberry.” And what about Augustus Gloop? “He got sucked up the pipe.” Well there you go.

He never ceases to amaze me. Maybe this is totally normal for a four year old, but I find myself thinking, I’ve got a real Whizzbanger on my hands!