Storytime
.:. January 28th, 2008 at 7:02 pm (music, reading)
One of the things that I looked forward to the most about being a dad was reading to my child. I imagined me reading all kinds of books to him, especially my childhood favorites like Dr Seuss and Richard Scarry. I also love shopping for books to read to him. Recently, I found these two children’s books:
Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum
Jazz *AND* reading! Reading *ABOUT* jazz! To children! Could anything be better?
Well, yes. After reading my son Hop on Pop last night while he was laying on my lap, I asked Juli to find my cool, antique book of Tennyson’s Collected Works. This book was published the year he died (1892) and is one of my very small collection of old books (most of them bought at the old Oxford Books). So she found it and I proceeded to read three poems: Lilian, Anabel, and Ulysses. It’s been a long time since I read poetry, and I think I know why: I wasn’t reading it out loud. There is something about poetry that just works better when reading it out loud. I am definitely going to be making this a part of my regular routine with the little guy. I read Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott this afternoon and he really liked it (it has a very nice cadence to it). I think I’m going to expand Sebastian’s range of authors. Maybe Lord Byron or Poe’s The Raven. Of course, I’ll also break out my huge collection of Basho poetry, but I think I’ll have to stick to his journals mostly since haiku really a bit short for this purpose.
