I posted the other day about our trip to Wigtown - Scotland's Book Town. Thirteen book shops in one street, and other booky things around the village. What a paradise!! Anyway - we returned from our holiday with a hefty stash each. This little lot belongs to James. He would have had much more - I found him sitting in front of a shelf in the Old Bank Bookshop with a large stack of Haynes car repair manuals beside him. "I'll just take these Mum" he said. Well, I managed to tempt him away to another shelf where he decided on the Great Little Railways instead. I wouldn't have minded, but his Father does have quite a few Haynes manuals already, going back several cars :) He does rather like the Picture Penguin - About a Motor Car. So do I - I think I may actually understand what some of those bits in a car engine are!This week I am sharing a short poem from When We Were Very Young by A.A Milne, called Politeness. I thought about it today when we were out for lunch and the cashier kept trying to talk to James and he didn't want to talk to her. "Oh - are you shy? - Oh he's shy - Isn't he shy?" Well - he's not actually shy - he just doesn't happen to think he should perform to random strangers - grrrr.
If people ask meI always tell them
"Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say"
If people ask me
I always answer
"Quite well, how are you today?"
I always answer,
I always tell them,
If they ask me
Politely....
BUT SOMETIMES
I wish
That they wouldn't.
Well - ok, James didn't exactly see this book and say "Can I have that one Mum?" We just happen to have the 3 other books in the same binding. It was a bit ironic that I found it in the Reading Lassies bookshop (currently for sale) ,which specialises in feminist and radical writing. Well - it gives us plenty of discussion material, about class discrimination, chauvinism and authoritative and remote parenting ;)
Share more books at Alex's blog -Canadian Home Learning
4 comments:
What a great collection of books and a wonderful poem by A.A. Milne. I smiled at your description of James with the Haynes car repair manuals! That's so cute. :)
Lovely post Jacqui - I hate the way people expect children to perform, and so does R, as he makes abundantly clear at times! Once, he even very politely asked some woman to stop talking to him ("please don't talk to me"), but she completely ignored him and carried on wittering on.
Must get some AA Milne. :) xxx
what lovely books and a bit of nostalgia thrown in x
Ah, the good ole days in the 80's that I and my girls spent in the children's bookshop downtown. I miss those days.
I raised one avid reader and one who reads, rereads, rereads again . . . middle school age literature. Could be worse. I volunteered at a middle school and at the time read some books and they were awesome.
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