As a poet, I always felt embarrassed about writing about my children.  It seemed self-indulgent and I feared being sentimental.  But then what could be more poetic than one’s children?  To not see poetry in their being bespeaks a terrible lack.  In Gifts: Poems for Parents, editor and poet Rhea Tregebov, addresses that lack with a slim but powerful selection of poems about children written by contemporary Canadian poet-parents.  “I think that as a poet, I began writing about being a parent not so much to correct misapprehensions or to vindicate my choices as to excavate my own terrors and pleasures.” Tregebov says in her introduction to Gifts.   The “terrors” and “pleasures” of parenthood are on full display here wrought in finely crafted poems by the likes of such poet parents as Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, and Rhea Tregebov herself.  There are poems of fear — night terrors, noises outside, wolves and monsters; and there are poems of wonder and awe; and poems, too, of frustration and anxiety.  If I were to be asked the question of who I was as a parent, I would like to answer the way John Steffler does in his poem “Hollis Street, Halifax” where

those with children at the ends

of their arms, [are] small versions of themselves brightly

inflating as they drain down,

as though they’d opened a vein in their wrists and

out poured blood taking the shape of a child

pulling them by the hand:

Parents are those, the poet says,”going invisible, sucked up the straws/of six year old arms, diving/inside small skins,/starting over again, small.”  That starting over again, the re-seeing that comes with being a parent is something that Gifts attempts to bring to the reader.  Look Mommy, Tregebov seems to say with this collection, poems especially for you.

Today’s Poetry Friday host is The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Before we move on to our discussion of A Girl Named Disaster and the introduction of the next Tiger’s Choice, we want to talk about the latest comments in the discussion of how to turn children into passionate readers.

Parents who read to their children are an essential element in creating readers, and Jeannine and Marjorie both bring up new ways for parents to ensure that this happens. Marjorie, whose sons’ book reviews light up the PaperTigers blog this week, suggests a virtual book group as being a way for children with irrepressible physical energy to come together in a space that doesn’t lend itself to exuberant (and distracting) physical activity. “After all,” she points out, “they are growing up with an affinity for virtuality which we can only wonder at!” Providing a way to link the world of books with the virtual world seems to be a brilliant way to keep reading alive in the brave new world of the internet. If anybody else has ideas on blending these two disparate pastimes, please let us know.

Jeannine, who read three to four books a night with her son when he was small, says that talking about the books was as much fun as reading them. She observes that parents can encourage their children to be engaged readers who can eventually take part in intelligent book discussions by through questions (“Why do you think he did that?”) and through connecting real-life activities with books shared with children. “If you’re reading about a garden, go outside and dig in the dirt,” she urges. And she adds, in the same spirit as Corinne, “As for the TV–just say no!”

Suggestions that add to this conversation, previously posted to the CCBC-net listserv, (the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education), are reprinted here with permission. Megan Schliesman, CCBC Librarian, says, “When my husband, daughter and I gather together for a shared story (we are currently on book 3 of Suzanne Collin’s “Gregor the Overlander series), I am aware–as several have already mentioned–that we are not only experiencing a terrific story, we are also making shared memories.”

Lee Bennett Hopkins, a well-known poet and anthologist, echoes another poet, Sherman Alexie, in advocating The Snowy Day. “Read aloud The Snowy Day by [Ezra Jack] Keats; follow it up with “Cynthia in the Snow” where snow is “Still white as milk or shirts/So beautiful it hurts.” in Gwendolyn Brooks’ Bronzeville Boys and Girls….With every book you read aloud, find a poem to go with it. I believe we spend too much time TEACHING children to READ–and NOT enough time TEACHING them to LOVE to read. GET the difference.”

Let’s celebrate that difference and continue the discussion on how to make it become a vital part of the lives of children.

Good literature promotes literacy. Reading to children promotes literacy. Promoting a love of books through the example of reading promotes literacy. And sharing a story together, at the end of the day especially, offers a moment of harmony and oasis in family life, which sometimes has to be safe-guarded from the encroachment of action-packed schedules. So all in all, a bedtime story is a win-win scenario, whichever way you look at it!

It can, however, be a daunting prospect for some parents, so today on Books at Bedtime I’d like to focus on two resources which offer parents some tools to help make storytelling a joy for all concerned.

The first is the Storytelling Bibliographies page on The Center for Children’s Books’ website. These booklists encompass stories from all over the world which make great readalouds, arranged by themes such as Phases of the Moon, Tales about Fools, Latino Folktales, Native American Tales… The links to Storytelling Websites offer rich scope and I especially like the process advocated here for using a book as a springboard for someone to tell a story; and for listeners then to extend that storytelling experience. Such activities will lead children to love books and to love words themselves… the next generation of storytellers and writers?

And the other resource is Australian writer Mem Fox reading extracts from her book Reading Magic – her web-page And Do It Like This offers a step-by-step guide to reading stories aloud to children. She also has her 10 Read Aloud Commandments – here’s number 10 :

Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.

And you can hear her putting all these hints and pieces of advice into action herself, reading three of her stories, including her avowed favorite Koala Lou: and she reads them beautifully.

All of us talk to our babies, from the first minute that we are together, even though those sounds are incomprehensible to an infant’s ear. Babies soon learn to associate those sounds with comfort, warmth and attention, and begin to respond with amazing speed. Reading to a baby does exactly the same thing, and babies whose parents read to them rapidly associate books with love and closeness. They become bibliophiles long before they can walk, with favorite books firmly established by the time they celebrate their first birthdays.

Parents can find this to be a mixed blessing. My mother, who is well over eighty, can still recite every word of a Little Golden Book called The New Baby and I myself have Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are firmly implanted in my memory. After being handed the same book for thirty nights in a row, even the most literate parent begins to dread the request, “Read this story, please.”

This is where “Books at Bedtime” comes in. Marjorie Coughlan, associate editor of PaperTigers and a passionate advocate of reading aloud to children, has long been offering suggestions for bedtime audiences of all ages, and she’s looking for comments from you. Which books do your children love? Which ones make them look for something else to do instead? Is there a particular illustrator that they can’t get enough of? Does one of Marjorie’s recommendations remind you of another book on a similar subject? Join her in her book group for parents, teachers, and caregivers who share the pleasure of reading aloud to children, and who are looking for the very best books for any time of day—including, of course, bedtime.