02 Picture Books and Bedtime Stories

Why is my first book a picture book?

This is not a difficult question to answer – I love picture books as they helped me manage my time as a parent and created some of the fondest memories I have of my children’s early years.

Many parents I know experience parenthood as something extremely challenging, not to say nerve wrecking. We all love our kids, but they push us to our limits mentally as well as physically. My son and daughter spent hours each and every day running around in the woods or park, climbing trees, building snowmen, swimming, skiing, ice-skating, playing, singing, yet after all these activities they never seemed tired, always wanting to know “What’s next?”

Picture books were my only saviour during those pre-kindergarten and pre-school years. Looking at picture books, listening to stories or doing puzzles were the only activities that kept them occupied and safe while I needed to prepare a meal, vacuum, iron some shirts or talk to my friend on the phone.

At the age of 3 my son had memorised all the stories I had read to them word by word and would “read” them to his baby sister. And yes, the baby sister listened to him and forgot mummy was not around. The best part of the day was without question the time when they were bathed and snuggled up in bed, being all peaceful and happy while listening to a bedtime story. This time of the day could not be interrupted by anyone or anything and the children enjoyed it so much that they themselves would tell me when it was time to go to bed.

I think I must have read them thousands of bedtime stories and if it hadn’t been for the amazing library in my district our family would have gone bankrupt just from buying all those wonderful books. Still, despite a children’s section in the local library and despite storing books they had outgrown in grandma’s attic, we ended up having so many books that the shelves in their room were filled from top to bottom.

Why do I believe that reading a bedtime story is a must for every parent?

• It creates intimacy between the reader and the child. Even kids who are not into cuddling and hugging will lie next to you awaiting the story. Body contact is crucial for a child’s emotional development, especially during the early childhood years and by reading a child a bedtime story body contact is guaranteed for at least a few minutes every day.
• Bedtime stories make the world around you stand still, which is a blessing in today’s hectic times.
• You can take your kids on a journey every single day and in my opinion it is the best way to trigger a conversation about things you want them to understand without being too educational.
• It is also fascinating to find out what your children have to say on certain topics, what their thoughts are on life and seeing things through the eyes of the character of a story can be a true outlet for emotions you might otherwise never realise existed.

Today, I see that many parents “torture” their children with teaching them how to read, write and sum up numbers when all this will be taught in school anyway. I decided not to participate in this new kind of madness, but let my children grow through stories. When they entered school they had access to a huge treasury of words, enough phantasy to write beautiful essays and were knowledgeable and interested in whatever topic the teachers had on their agenda.

Until now, both my children love books, which helps a lot when you are studying for your IGCSE or A-levels or when you are a student at university. Now that they are 17 and 20 there are no more bedtime stories for me to read to them, but we still discuss books and movies and it is now them who tell me what books I must read.

Books are friends, so why not introduce your kids to lifelong companions right from the start?