Here’s another
remembrance from my childhood days, one that illustrates very simply how
reading to one’s kids will make a big difference in their lives. It’s from my Hilo
Days website, which is long gone,
unfortunately.
Stories –
A Tradition
Did I tell you Obachan used to tell me stories? She told me all those famous Japanese folk
tales.
There were quite a few, but the
one that I remember most was "Momotaro, The Peach Boy."
It's a great story, especially the part where Momotaro fights the Oni (ogre) with his friends (monkey,
dog, eagle, and maybe another animal – memory fails).
I remember lying in bed listening to Obachan tell those
tales, thinking how great it would be to be Momotaro, to be born from a peach,
to have such heroic friends and adventures, and to fearlessly defeat the evil
devils.
And then Mom would also tell me stories. She told me those neat children's stories,
and used to recite Eugene Field poetry. I especially remembered and loved "Peter Rabbit" and
"Winken, Blinken and Nod."
Mom says she used to take me shopping with her and that
I'd recite "Winken, Blinken and Nod" to anyone in the store who would
listen. Wow. How embarrassing to find out later in life
that I was strange enough to actually do that.
I really enjoyed the stories. They were great. Later on, when I became a dad, I made it a
point to read to my two sons. Especially
during Christmas. We always had a
tradition of reading a whole bunch of stories on Christmas Eve — "The
Night Before Christmas," "Babar
Meets Father Christmas," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and
stories like that.
Remember now, those were the days when we didn't have
television. Radio was the only mass
electronic medium available, and no one could afford to go to movies every night. So story-telling (or story-listening) was a
significant part of our lives.
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