During one move, when we had just three little girls, we read The Little House on the Prairie series. I love the way Laura Ingalls Wilder demonstrates natural curiosity, a desire to contribute to her family, and healthy satisfaction with a job well done. When we first approached her series, we had a month in a short-term rental in Alaska with nothing to do but read The Little House in the Big Woods. It was the perfect book for us: a family with three little girls who were moving and finding joy in working together. By the time we moved into our home, we were aching to sweep floors!
This started a pattern of housework—and family read alouds—that was truly satisfying. We took our time learning to do things right, and to this day, my twenty-year-old still admits that scrubbing is one of her favorite things to do. Natural satisfaction in dealing with dirt is not something that is native to my nature, so when I started this process I was trying to teach myself as I taught my kids—and learned from them. Learning to love to work.
There is something about stories that helps ease life’s lessons. When our circumstances are swirling over our heads, it helps to open a book. Those winds fade as we read about someone in a parallel circumstance. When we close the book, our perspective on our situation adjusts to the horizon. We are better able to see the big picture.
During this move, from Stuttgart to Williamsburg, our children’s needs were different. Even our youngest child will work when invested, but our kids have never been without a home for so long. I wanted something to help hotel living feel like a luxury. We read aloud The Family Under the Bridge, about an elderly man who befriends three homeless children living under a bridge in Paris.
Now we are reading The Mysterious Benedict Society. Two of the children read this book in Stuttgart and suggested it as a read-aloud. Surprisingly, even these two who had already read it are invested in reading it as a family and are willing to read aloud while we take turns opening boxes.
Both of these books are about children who are not in their own homes. Both sets of children create family in unexpected ways.
When the boxes arrive, things arrive broken. And it’s okay. These books have helped keep things in perspective for all of us. We have a home, we have family, and we have superglue. We have felt that our family isn’t broken but is growing stronger from the bumps along the road. This is the power of the right book at the right time.
Post a Comment