It wasn’t all that long ago that I used to end every evening in the same way. I would sit in a glider chair in the corner of a darkened room, a small little boy nestled onto my lap, and by the light of a blue turtle lamp that cast stars and moons all over the ceiling and the walls, I would read him a story. It wasn’t always much of a story. ABC Look at Me from Dolly’s Imagination Library was a nightly request for quite some time. Night Night Forest Friends was a fan favorite. Occasionally, even a flimsy paperback storybook from a Chick-fil-A kid’s meal would become part of our regular rotation. I would push both of my children toward the classics that I remembered from my childhood — The Little Engine That Could, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Goodnight Moon — but they had their own particular tastes, and would often want the same story to be read 73 times in a row before they would retire it from the lineup (or the title would become conveniently “lost”). I remember well the words of one specific Dr. Seuss book getting stuck in my head like a bad song on the radio, the lines playing through my mind all during the day until I would inevitably be asked to read the book at night (and I had the words memorized so well that I hardly needed to look at the pages).
I tried to treasure those moments. I knew that they would be short-lived and that I would miss them someday. And while I do long for those little-boy snuggles in the glider chair that has long since been donated in the nursery bedroom that no longer exists…I do not miss those bedtime stories.
Because bedtime has not disappeared like I once worried that it would. It has merely been upgraded.
Both of my children are eight and ten, and bedtime stories have been upgraded to chapter books read by their bedside as they snuggle under their covers with eyelids growing heavy. We have spent our evenings sailing through the sky on a giant peach airlifted by a stringed flock of seagulls, and laughed along as a dog named Winn-Dixie upset an entire pet store full of critters loose from their cages. We have followed along as a childhood Roald Dahl slipped a mouse into a jar of candy while the mean old shopkeeper was distracted, and we’ve contemplated discussions between Jonas and the Giver as he proposed that all memories are worth being held onto, even the sad ones.
Now that we’ve slipped into this golden era of bedtime stories, bedtime has once again become one of my favorite parts of the day. My boisterous, screen-addicted children become quiet and contemplative. They listen carefully, and they imagine, and they ask really insightful questions. They start bedtime discussions that bleed into the next morning and they eagerly propose daytime activities that tie in to the narrative they listened to the night before.
My eight-year-old asked me to come and be a guest reader with his second grade class one week. And rather than bringing along a picture book to share, he wanted me to read his favorite chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — the one where Veruca Salt gets carried away by a horde of angry squirrels. I wasn’t sure how well the class of second-graders would receive it. After all, if they were used to much shorter stories with pictures to see, wouldn’t they become bored? The chapter was actually quite long. But much to my surprise, they all sat quietly at their desks and ate their snacks, enraptured by my read aloud. They laughed loudly at all of the funny parts, they asked creative questions, and they begged me to keep reading any time I suggested a stopping point. They loved it when I gently rapped my knuckles on my son’s head at the front of the classroom and declared him a “bad nut,” and to my surprise, they all lined up for me to knock on their heads and tell them that they were all bad nuts as well. It felt like a little bit of bedtime magic right smack in the middle of the day, shared with a room full of friends.
I don’t know how long this season of bedtime stories will continue, but I’m going to cherish every night of it while it lasts. Perhaps bedtime stories aren’t just for littles. Perhaps I’m living in my best era of parenting right now, especially during the hour of 8:00-9:00pm.
