12/09/2007

reading...

These are my bookish kids. See how cute they are...reading away and oblivious to everything else?

Any guesses on where they are? Yep, they are sitting under the Eiffel Tower. Not looking up, not clambering to climb up its steps....

It's a great story to tell, really. How my cute kids read their way across Europe. And I swear that they didn't do this everywhere (we took the books away while we were at the Louvre, etc....)

:)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are super cute.

And I want to know what they were reading.

We were in our local Charbucks the other day, and a little girl was there with her mother and a book. I somehow snagged a glance at a chapter title in the book, and it was something rather more political than I would expect to see in something an eight-year-old was reading. So then I found myself staring and straining to catch a glimpse of the cover (which was orange, I think).

Some comfy purple velvet chairs opened up, and the mother and daughter and book moved away to them, and I was left to wonder if they thought I was some kind of weirdo or something. No, I couldn't have just asked them what she was reading; that would have made me an even weirder weirdo, the kind who talks to children she doesn't know.

Don't know what I mean? Read this aloud in your best witch-in-the-gingerbread-house voice: "And what have you got there, little girl? Is it a nice book?"

jana said...

In this pic I think GameBoy is reading _Varjak Paw_ and CatGirl is reading _Matilda_. Both purchased at Shakespeare&Co bookshop just across the Seine from Notre Dame.

Strangers ask my kids what they're reading all the time (esp when we're all cozied up on overstuffed chairs in coffee shops). I never think such folks are weirdos. Rather, it's a great opportunity to discuss books--and what fun that is!
:)

Anonymous said...

Oh, good to know!

We child-free types have to be instructed in such nuances. My inclination is to treat kids like other people, but then I worry about crossing some line of stranger weirdness that will freak out their parents.

These lines probably exist in greater abundance here in New England. Or maybe they only exist in my head. Still, I don't like to freak people out, but I do want to know what they are reading, even if they are kids! So thank you. :)