Book Report

Alayna, at 6 years of age, completed reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this evening.  This is her very first "BIG" book with multiple characters, main and secondary story lines, and a moral to be told.  She devoured the book over the last couple of weeks, reading whenever possible.  I remember asking her to put her book away while eating breakfast one morning because she wasn't eating, or she was dripping milk from her spoon onto the pages.

At the end of the book, Alayna gave us an impromptu oral book report.  She described all of the characters including their satirical demise in the Chocolate Factory as they succumbed to their individual vices.  She commented on the humor of a glass elevator transporting a bed full of grandparents through the roof.  She even through out some random trivia that Grandpa had been in bed for the last 20 years.  She summed up the general plot and shared her favorite parts.

What an amazing girl.  I think we as parents have just had it made incredibly clear that our job is not necessarily to teach Alayna, who taught herself to read, but to make sure that she has every opportunity to learn available, and to make sure that she is never told that she is too young to do the work of learning.