A Good Story

we were at my parent's house during the first part of december when i came across a little, lost treasure. and it is called THE GREATEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER. this was a book that i fondly remember from my childhood, that i have found myself thinking about throughout the years, but had no idea that my mom had saved it! it is so worn and tattered...but just as lovely and endearing as i remembered it to be. i scooped it up and asked mom if i could take it and read it to the kids...which she let me do, of course. that started a neat, little thing that i like to call "reading our chapter for the night." i started out gathering the kids and reading 1 chapter each night. however, they ended up liking it so much that we started sneaking in more chapters each night. after we finished that book...we didn't want to stop our family gathering each night. so we picked out a new Junie B Jones book (which are some of the funniest children's stories that i have ever read) called JINGLE BELLS; BATMAN SMELLS; (PS, SO DOES MAY). it had chad and i rolling along with the kids. after we finished that...i decided that we needed to keep this little tradition up as long as possible. now, we are in the middle of THE BOXCAR CHILDREN. it is not as funny as the first two books, but they are all listening at least. and...i think the story lends itself to facilitating imaginative play for them. there are 4 kids...2 brothers and 2 sisters that are homeless and having to be very resourceful to get shelter and food each day. i love that the kids are involved in a story where kids their own age are coveting things from the dump that they can make a spoon or fork out of and vegetables from someones garden that are considered too small or bruised to be used. we try to explain to them how grateful they should be to have food on their plates and a roof over their heads...much less all the video games, tvs, and all the other extravagant things they have. and in this story...that actually comes to life for them. i decided to just read the story...and not try to make a lesson out of it just yet, but i can tell that colton, especially, is thinking about it. which i love. i'm already excited about what book we will pick up next. and to think...the greatest family time of our day was started with a great, little christmas pageant. love the books. love the kids. love the time together to get lost in the pages of a good story.