Girl Detective

My results on the 48 hour book challenge were disappointing, but not surprising. Our family had a lot of things to do this weekend, it was Father’s Day, plus there have been the usual shenanigans with 2 small kids, and there was not nearly so much reading as I would have liked. There was, however, still reading. I was heartened that, even with everything else going on, I kept trying. Here’s when and what I read from Friday morning to Sunday morning:

Friday

8:42 to 8:46 a.m. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, while nursing Guppy, who seems to be protesting the “read while nursing” thing by popping on and off randomly and in general becoming a far less enthusiastic and conscientious nurser. He’s just four months old, though, and this is consistent with development, as they suddenly become much more aware and distracted by what’s going on around them. It does interfere with reading, though. My 2yo Drake was having some out-of-diaper time, and chose this time to pee on the floor. He did get a towel and wipe it up after I asked him to, though. Total pages read: 3. Very annoyed by Holden’s voice, and aware that if it were written today, all the “goddamn”s would be “fucking”s.

11:10 a.m. to 1:10 p.m. had a friend and her 2yo over so she and I could discuss Sense and Sensibility. No reading done, but definite book talk, in between toddler discipline sessions for jumping on furniture, screaming indoors, throwing toys, not sharing, etc.

1:35 to 1:50 p.m. Read books to Drake before his nap. He chooses from our current selections from the library as well as from his own library.

Sheep in Wolves Clothing by Satoshi Kitamura. I love Kitamura’s art, and this is a fun, clever book with wool-thieving wolves who knit and listen to jazz. It’s a long-time favorite of Drake’s.

Two Old Potatoes and Me by John Coy. Coy is a Minnesotan author, and Drake has asked to hear this library book over and over. The story, about a dad and daughter who try to grow new potatoes from old ones, is told in simple prose with striking graphics; many of the words are incorporated into the pictures. There’s a short interlude that reveals the girl is visiting her dad and usually lives with her mom. It could easily have seemed thrown in, but both the art and sensitive dialogue from the father to the daughter help this spread mesh with the book, and deepen the reader’s appreciation for the characters.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell, ill. by Helen Oxenbury. I saw this at Book Moot alongside the Oxenbury-illustrated We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which was another recent library favorite of Drake’s. Farmer Duck works the farm because the farmer is too lazy. Drake has listened to Farmer Duck so many times in the few weeks we’ve had it in the house that he’s memorized several pages of Waddell’s inviting, poetic prose. I enjoy the cadence of the words as I read aloud, and Oxenbury’s textured watercolor illustrations are charming without being at all cutesy.

1:55 to 2:00 p.m. Read books to Guppy before his nap.

Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boynton One of our first board books from when Drake was a baby, with Boynton’s usual cute animals and sense of humor.
See the Rabbit and Baby Sleeps, by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. Simple phrases and illustrations of babies doing all the baby-ish things.

4:34 to 4:40 p.m. Nursed Guppy, read another three pages of Catcher.

5:05 to 5:10 Snuck in another two pages of Catcher while the boys were happy and occupied.

5:30 to 5:50 Read board books to Guppy while he had tummy time:

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss Seuss’s rhymes, while different in board book form, are still some of the best.
1, 2, 3 by Tana Hoban Great photo illustrations
Go, Dog, Go by P. D. Eastman. Completely different in board book form, but still fun, though the final rhyme is forced.
Hey, Wake Up by Sandra Boynton When Drake was younger, he would laugh and laugh at the “broccoli stew” line. Though he eventually stopped, I will always love this book for that.
Mighty Movers: Diggers and Dumpers One of Drake’s favorites. Hardly an intellectual challenge.
The Snowy Day Beautiful prose and lovely illustrations.
A to Z by Sandra Boynton has some charming combinations: Frogs Frowning and Hippos Hiding are two favorites.

7:55 to 8:00 p.m. Read board books to Guppy for bed, while my husband read to Drake.

Pajama Time by Boynton is a decent bedtime book, but writing it up here makes me realize it’s only OK, and probably doesn’t deserve a permanent spot in the rotation.
The Going to Bed Book by Boynton, though, has both fun illustrations and a good rhyming cadence, with an amusing interlude. This was Drake’s final book before bed for a long, long time.
Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I love reading aloud Brown’s rhymes, which are never forced. I find the illustration OK, but it’s the words that make me love this book.

8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Various grown-up stuff that I can’t get to while the kids are awake, like showering and watching a TV show.

11:00 p.m. Read eight pages of Catcher to get to the end of a chapter, but was too tired to read more. Depressed to have only made it to page 16 by the end of the day.

Saturday

I didn’t write down the times I read, but I had several errands to run, so there was much less reading in general. I read a few pages of Catcher each time I nursed Guppy, and Drake asked me to read him the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim #3, so I did a few pages while expressing milk. I had to euphemize some of the language, and I read just enough to realize I’m going to need to re-read #s 1 and 2 before tackling 3.

By the time the boys were in bed, I’d read enough of Catcher to come to appreciate Holden, and to see through the annoying bluster of his language. He’s a decent guy, I thought, more empathetic than most. Not a jerk, though certainly capable of aggravating. When I continued to read, another throught crept in, which was an awareness of the writer behind the scenes, creating this character who is vulnerable and kind to women. I began to suspect Salinger of the same thing that is one of Holden’s many pet peeves:

If you do something too good, then after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.

I finished the night at only page 76, a little more than a third of the way through my mmpb edition, but too tired to read more.

Sunday morning

Guppy woke to nurse around 6, then went back to sleep. I grabbed Catcher and went downstairs and got in another thirty pages or so by the time he and Drake got up, which put me at about half way through. Began to wonder if it was Salinger who hated social artifice and the movies, and if he ventriloquised through Holden.

So for the 48 hour challenge between 8:42 a.m. on Friday and 8:42 a.m. on Sunday, I read 3 picture books, 13 board books, about 20 pages of Scott Pilgrim #3, and 106 pages of Catcher in the Rye. I don’t have either a complete page count or an exact time count, though I think it added up to about 4 hours. I’d hoped to do more reading for myself, but I did persevere in spite of myriad errands, tasks, and interruptions.

Added later: I know mine wasn’t exactly congruent with the book challenge–committing time to check out the unread YA books in one’s life. But since that’s part of my overall summer challenge, and since getting through a busy weekend and re-reading Catcher and reading to the boys is what I have to do to clear the way to the unread YA books, I think I still fell within the spirit of the challenge.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 7:31 am and is filed under Parenthood, Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.