Middle brother has been weird about storytime, lately. He says he wants to do stories, he spends a great deal of time picking out the book he wants, and then after the first page, he announces “The end,” and forcibly closes the book on me. He’s an active toddler, so this isn’t totally unexpected. I just keep offering.
Last night, however, we picked The Babysitter from Another Planet, and for the first time in weeks, he sat for a whole story. The illustrations are simple, but the juxtaposition of colors really draws the eye. The story is fun. Middle brother thought the alien looked like a robot, so I read the whole thing in my robot voice, which maybe helped hold his attention.
In addition to just the right amount of words for a smaller child’s attention span, the story also makes babysitters sound fun. We haven’t run into an issue with the younger boys not wanting to be left, yet, mostly because we leave them with family most of the time that we leave them at all, but I remember this being an issue for big brother when he was about 4. I like that this story plants the seed of the idea that even “scary” babysitters can be great if you give them a chance.
In mommy reading news, I have started Voyager, so expect only audiobook reviews of adult books in the near future. This 1,100 page monster is going to take me a while.
3 Boys 3 Billion Books 