Family Reading Time

I ended my last post on the subject of priorities, noting that I’m putting this blog a little higher on the priority list. One priority I’ve made pretty consistently over the last few years is family reading time. Since the kids aren’t with me every night, family reading time isn’t a daily activity, but, when they’re with me, I make an effort to spend 20 or 30 minutes reading to them… most nights. We usually read after they’re ready for bed, which means getting them ready early enough to get some reading in before their 8:30 bedtime. Not always easy!

This summer, we finished the Chronicles of Narnia, a series we started sometime last fall. Our nights reading about Lucy and Edmund and Eustace and Caspian and all the rest — those were precious times for our family. The girls enjoyed the adventure elements in the stories, but they really loved the characters, especially the fantastical ones. Reepicheep and Mr. Tumnus were favorites. Each time we started a new book, the girls would ask if those two were in it.  We watched the movies, too, as we finished each corresponding book. The girls have made me promise to buy the first one on DVD for them, they liked it so much. Lily asked me about it again just yesterday!

The Narnia stories have been wonderful for helping me share my faith with my girls. Lily, bless her sweet heart, fell in love with Aslan. Every time he appeared, she would blurt out “Aslan!” like she was greeting a best friend. I can’t help but think Aslan has given her a model for understanding God and His love for her. As for Hannah, each book includes one (human) character who makes selfish choices, suffers the consequences of those choices, feels regret, and then experiences forgiveness from Aslan. Hannah empathized with these characters and recognized the power of forgiveness. As with Lily, I think Hannah learned something of God’s character, His grace and mercy. And The Last Battle, the final book in the series, gave the girls a vision of what heaven might be like. I don’t find it easy to have spiritual conversations with my daughters, but Narnia opened a few doors for us.

Pro tip: Read the Narnia books in the original publication order, not the order that HarperCollins wants you to read them in. We started with The Magician’s Nephew, but the girls found it confusing, slow, and a little disturbing. After a few chapters we switched to reading the book in the order C. S. Lewis wrote them: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; A Horse and His Boy; The Magician’s Nephew; and The Last Battle.

Next up for family reading time: the WondLa series by Tony DiTerlizzi. We’re well into the first book, and the girls are hooked. It doesn’t have the spiritual facet that Narnia does, but it’s a fun adventure featuring a young girl trying to find her place in a world she doesn’t understand. It reminds me a bit of some of the films of Hayao Miyazaki. His My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service are two of the girls’ favorites.

I’m thinking that, after the WondLa series, we’ll try Howl’s Moving Castle. They haven’t seen the Miyazaki movie version, and it’s a book I remember fondly reading when I was Hannah’s age. A couple of years ago, we read another book from my youth, The Westing Game, still one of my all-time favorite books. Sharing books I read as kid makes family reading time a little more special.

I know I’m not the only one with family reading time. What are some books you’ve enjoyed reading to your kids?

Image: “Rainbow of Books,” John Remy, Flickr (CC) – Not our library!