Owen Goes To The Library

Owen continues to have what I will carefully call an interesting relationship with books.  He’s not like my nephew Henry was, who at Owen’s age would back up into your lap with a book the minute you sat down.  But I wouldn’t say Owen is NOT interested in books; it’s just that it takes a little finagling to get him to sit and pay attention to one.

He still likes the books he likes, and the books he likes tend to be the books he knows very well.  If I sit down with Owen and try to read him a book that is new to him, he will push it out of my hand and say No.  But if I can immediately show him something on a page that interests him, then perhaps he will be intrigued enough to give the book a chance.  We’ve also had some luck in this regard with Sean reading a new book to Owen as Owen sits in the tub.  He’s a captive audience, and is thus then willing to give a book a listen, while he pours water from one cup into another.

On the other hand, if he likes a book, then he will want me to read it over and over and over, perhaps five or six times in a row.  The other Saturday we took him to the library for the first time to get books for him.  I had to search quickly, so can’t really vouch for the quality of the stack we borrowed.  However, I did make sure to get some Maisy books, since we have about four of those at home that he really enjoys.  And he immediately obsessed over the two new Maisy books we got – "Maisy Cleans Up" and "Maisy Drives a Bus."  Both were big hits, especially the cleaning one since it involved six cupcakes waiting to be eaten.  Owen also likes the Eddie Elephant character, and always lets me know that Eddie is “An Epiphant!”

Another of his favorite books at home is “Sheep in a Jeep”, and while at the library I discovered that there are a whole bunch of Sheep books, and so borrowed “Sheep in a Ship” and “Sheep on a Hike”.  But whereas I liked these books muchly, Owen isn’t too interested in them:  it turns out it was the Jeep he liked in the previous book, and not so much the sheep (even though one knits!  And they are always getting into a funny muddle!).

So two of the nine books we borrowed were hits, which I suppose isn’t so bad.  I will keep trying, at any rate!

I’ll leave you with pictures of Owen reading my biography of Pepys, which he snatched from the table and then wouldn’t give back, telling me emphatically, “It’s mine!”  I’ve been reading that book since August, so perhaps he’ll finish it before I do.