This New Yorker essay has inspired me to read William Steig's books again. I am only familiar with some of them from J's childhood but even with those, I did not view the storylines from the perspective this author describes. How do you tell a child a story that the adult reading it to them finds some value in as well. Though truth be told, I have read very little out loud to J. For one thing, I pushed her to be self-sufficient since I had so little time and wanted to maximize what I could squeeze out of it. Probably goes with the territory of being a single-parent. But I also had standards I could not live upto. My mother read me a lot of things in Bangla from a very young age until the time I left to college. She comes from a very artistic and creative family so her reading was always very performative - it helped me experience the story in an immersive way.
Being that I lacked that talent, it made me self-conscious to read aloud. My reading always sounded flat and two-dimensional to my ears. This is not how it felt when my mother read to me. I knew what I was aspiring for but lacked the ability to deliver. So J learned to read quite early and was on her own for the most part. We played audio books while driving which was entertaining for both of us even if the book was a children's book.
Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories does an amazing job of layering many stories into a single narrative flow where each reader based on their background and age will likely come away with a different understanding of the book. I have read it a few different times in my life and have always been charmed by the experience - reading a children's book that also has a lot to offer to an adult.
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