Family Storytime

Their eyes are as big as saucers, their world consumed by another in their head. Grandfather Frog, "Chug-a-rum", has just imparted the story of how Striped Chipmunk's Pockets. All the Merry Little Breezes are dancing about in glee at the tale...And my little ones are spellbound as much as those inhabitants of the Green Meadow.

Every day, we read stories at my house. In the morning after breakfast, we sit at the table and have a Bible story and a reading from the New Testament (NLT). During the day, any one of our hundreds of books or library checkouts is fair game. At night after supper, we read a story or something from a book as a family.

Recently, we started a book with multiple animal stories written by one Thornton Burgess. Mr. Burgess was unknown to us but now I wished I'd known about him sooner. He was an American conservationist and the author of over 15,000 bedtime stories collected in 172 books with great animal characters and good morals. He wrote a daily story column uninterrupted from 1912-1960! That's 45 years of reading at suppertime!

As you can see from the initial opening of this post, it's been quite a hit. For me as the reader, it's pure joy. His animal characters lend themselves to improvised voices and actions which makes the experience thoroughly entertaining. So if you haven't checked out his stuff, download some e-books and give them a whirl. You may find you too have a lot of reading to catch up on at dinnertime.