VisitingJane

We went to see Jane again this afternoon. We brought real, boughten flowers this time, although we did get a random assortment from the flower seller at the market who sells very random flowers. Opal picked it very carefully, but her main criterion was the presence of snapdragons (I wanted the one with purple gladiolus, but it didn't have any snapdragons). Opal drew an assortment of pictures for Jane. Some of them were pure single-color abstracts, but she did some careful flower drawings, too.

I told Jane that we were reading the Oz books, and she was interested in borrowing them. This made me realize that one of the things that distinguishes Opal's reading from that of her peers is not just the sheer amount of it, but the extent to which the adults in her life enjoy her books. Sure, she reads and loves books that nobody around her much cares about, but a lot of her books get genuine pleasure and interest from the adults around. That's not true for kids who read the same kiddy books over and over. She gets to lend her books to grownups, and discuss them intelligently. No wonder she doesn't want to read easy readers.

Read to Opal today: Patch's London Adventure, Fly High, Fly Low, we finished The Storm, we finished The Bee Sneeze, Give The Dog a Bone, and we read another big chunk of The Tin Woodman of Oz.

The Running Book Count: 458 + 23 (last year 1886 + 2)