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Oswin and Edward Lear
Oswin has recently been enjoying Richard reading Dr Seuss books like 'One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish' to her. While the illustrations are amusing, it's probably the rhyme and rhythm of the words that are a big part of the appeal.
So, today, I tried 'The Jumblies' on her. (the last time I tried, she was still too young and wasn't interested, but now she's nearly 2 1/2)
Big success.
Read it half a dozen times throughout the day and followed that up with a couple of readings of 'The Owl and the Pussycat'.
Only a few pictures for each poem. Definitely the words that she loved. Big smile at the end each time and requests for another reading.
Edward Lear's poems appear to be working for yet another generation of children. Oswin has no idea what all the made-up words mean, but it doesn't seem to bother her any more than it did my generation. Personally, I think a runcible spoon is a spoon with holes in it (the kind you use for draining things). It fits Lear's cheerful illogic.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
I think the time may have come to get Kipling off my bookshelf. Oh yes, my best beloved. I'm itching to read her the 'The Elephant's Child' and the other Just So stories. My father read them to me, and I read them to my children. They were written to be read aloud, the words roll along. "What does the crocodile have for dinner?"
"Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out."
Go and read it again, you know you want to! And if you've never read it, find a child and read it to them immediately.
So, today, I tried 'The Jumblies' on her. (the last time I tried, she was still too young and wasn't interested, but now she's nearly 2 1/2)
Big success.
Read it half a dozen times throughout the day and followed that up with a couple of readings of 'The Owl and the Pussycat'.
Only a few pictures for each poem. Definitely the words that she loved. Big smile at the end each time and requests for another reading.
Edward Lear's poems appear to be working for yet another generation of children. Oswin has no idea what all the made-up words mean, but it doesn't seem to bother her any more than it did my generation. Personally, I think a runcible spoon is a spoon with holes in it (the kind you use for draining things). It fits Lear's cheerful illogic.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
I think the time may have come to get Kipling off my bookshelf. Oh yes, my best beloved. I'm itching to read her the 'The Elephant's Child' and the other Just So stories. My father read them to me, and I read them to my children. They were written to be read aloud, the words roll along. "What does the crocodile have for dinner?"
"Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out."
Go and read it again, you know you want to! And if you've never read it, find a child and read it to them immediately.
no subject
(I learned a lot of unlikely vocabulary from Beatrix Potter -- I wonder how many children acquired 'soporific' from "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies"? I don't think unknown words really worry children, because they're used to coming across them all the time anyway...)
no subject
Any RPG player of my generation will know what a vorpal sword is.
'Galumph' came from Jabberwocky too.
And although the word never made it into common usage, I always called the area around my grandparents sundial a 'wabe'.