Here's my son at "Feria del Libro" engaged in an activity I call "parallel reading," which is probably just another form of "parallel play." While the L.A. librarian read Peggy Rathmann's Officer Buckle and Gloria, my son opened up Where the Wild Things Are.The scene made me imagine what the two stories, or any two stories, would sound like if read aloud at the same time. Would a third story emerge from the seeming gibberish, in the spaces in between the two stories? Uh-oh, it sounds like I may have another experiment on my hands.
Back to "parallel reading." Sometimes my son selects a bedtime book for me to read. Read that sentence again. That's right. He will choose a book for me to read aloud to myself, and then he selects a book for himself. Can anyone else speak to this interesting reading behavior?
Fun stuff: Note the "sizzling storytime" poster in the background of the above photo. In one of my many literary laboratories, I am working on a helio-biblio index that charts the temperatures for book festivals in the L.A. area. My research has revealed the following so far: books are hot! (based on data collected at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, the West Hollywood Book Fair, and Feria del Libro).
Stay tuned...
