Within the Pages of a Book

Within the Pages of a Book

Choosing a Night Time Story

Many bed-time story books are available on bookstore shelves. I enjoy browsing through books to lull children to sleep with the understanding that they were loved and cherished and books that encourage a sleep full of positive thoughts and assurances of night time safety. In our home, however, bedtime stories were always chosen by our children. The personal favorites were read and re-read until the covers became dog-eared and the binding was broken or non-existent. Each child seemed to be drawn to particular books that became bedtime favorites. Now that our children are adults, I look back and understand why they were drawn to the books that they chose and how those much-loved books impacted on their futures.

Our very creative, sensitive, rule-conscious son’s favorite book was about a very lively racoon named Barney. Barney's Sand Castle is a book written by Stephanie Calmeson and illustrated by Sheila Beckett that was published in 1983. This Little Golden Book sparked our son’s creativity, in addition to his need for love and safety. It became the first book he “read” to us. His high-pitched, sleepy, sing-song, voice told of Barney happily collecting natures treasures along the beach to add to his sand castle, under the watchful eye of his mother, was a nightly ritual. The story of Barney collecting found shells and a perfect bird’s feather from a bird that “swooped down into the water and came back up with a fish in his beak” to decorate his sand castle allowed our son to imagine personal creative successes, while Barney’s care of the living creatures he found encouraged his caring, sensitive nature. As an adult, our son’s compositions as a music composer often brings to light our memories of the excitement that he experienced with the reading about the swooping bird and Barney’s realization of the perfect ending, the bird feather, to complete the fragile castle.

Our daughter was always more serious and focused than her highly creative brother. She directed play-time like a manager of a corporation. Even her earliest pre-school experiences were marked with group leadership, sometimes to frustration of her playmates. Her favorite night time story was The Fire Cat by Esther Averill. The story is about a young cat named Pickles, with unusually large paws, who is adopted by the local firehouse. Though some viewed Pickles’ paws as a detriment, Pickles dreamed of doing big things.

Little did we know, at the time, that our daughter would face down the difficulties of trying to break-into a male-dominated career and also dealing with a life-threatening genetic illness. Perhaps the oft-repeated story of Pickles’ success in his dog-dominated career while using his “handicapping” large paws to his advantage, were foundational to the courage that she found to face and overcome these difficulties.

Children are drawn to characters that possess qualities that they need to handle life difficulties. Stories of a creative, sensitive raccoon and a persevering cat helped to foster a foundation for my children.

These were not the books that we would have chosen to read night after night. In fact, we were tempted to hide the much-loved, dog-eared books in lieu of more popular reading material.

When I spend time with my grandchildren and have the privilege of reading a bedtime story, their choice of a story gives me pause. I wonder what dreams or qualities are being developed through the reading of the pages of the much-loved book.

Looking back on my personal childhood, I wonder what long-forgotten childhood books helped to shape the decisions that I made. Were they stories chosen by my parents or grandparents because of the beauty of the illustrations and the popularity of the book, or were they self-chosen stories within the cover of a book that has long-ago deteriorated and was discarded without a second thought? Were the forgotten books formative or a reflection of childhood experiences? We should never minimize the importance of allowing a young child to choose their own book.