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November 18, 2002
At bedtime, Mommy reads Zoe a story, then Daddy sings her a song. Tonight, she chose "This Old Man." When he got to "This old man/He plays nine," Daddy couldn't remember what the old man played nine on. For lack of the right word, Daddy and Zoe settled on a lime.
When Daddy tucked Gus in, he asked Gus what the right word was. Gus couldn't think of it, so he started to sing the song, thinking it would come without thinking. What he came up with was this: "This old man/He played nine/He played knick knack on a recliner."
Gus had to do a book report in school recently on a fantasy book. He originally wanted to do The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, but that was too big a book to do. Since Gus wanted to do his report on a Tolkien book, Daddy told him he should do "Farmer Giles of Ham," which, technically, isn't a book, but is a fairly long story. It is also one of Daddy's favorite stories in the world. It's in a book Daddy has, along with "Smith of Wootton Major." Gus thought "Smith of Wootton Major" was a better story to do, principally because it's about 40 pages shorter.
Boy was he wrong. It's a much harder story to do a report on because there is a much less active and linear plot. There are many more subtleties for a young reader to work through, and the plot is more intellectual than physical. It's a fairly serious story, and the words themselves are harder than the typical fourth-grade fantasy story. Gus did some wonderful artwork for his book report, but he needed some help sorting out what to actually write.
To celebrate finishing the report, Daddy read "Smith of Wootton Major" to Gus as a bedtime story last night. It flowed better for Gus when he listened to Daddy read it, and it made more sense. Maybe that should've been done at the beginning of the process.
Tonight, Daddy read the first half of "Farmer Giles of Ham," which is a more simple and lighthearted story of a quest to kill a dragon. On a more adult level, it is quite satirical of human nature. Gus was very much into the story, and asked questions about the characters' Latin names and the meanings of things like "vulgar tongue" and "blunderbuss." We left off just as Farmer Giles is setting off to find the dragon, and we can't wait for bedtime tomorrow night.
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