Favourite books and favourite moments

One more thing... This evening I finished reading A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, out loud to my daughter. MAN, I love that book. Reading out loud is so much more emotional than reading in my head. Maybe it's the actor in me, but I can't just read words when I read out loud. I have to put in all the emotion, too. So there I am reading out loud as Meg tells Charles Wallace that she loves him with all her heart, and begs him to come back to her, dear baby brother whom she loves... Tears are running down my cheeks at the same time as they're running down Meg's and Charles Wallace's....

And a number of years ago, I read Lord of the Rings out loud to my son, and by the end of it, when Sam says, "Well, I'm back." We both of us were bawling our eyes out.

Yeah, my kids are as old as they are, but damn right I still read out loud to them every night. I treasure that time. When they were wee I couldn't wait until they were old enough for me to read Word to Caesar, by Geoffrey Trease, to them. And The House in Cornwall, and Treasure Island, and all the Great Brain books and all the Madeleine L'Engle books. Now I'm reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, to The Boy, coz he's old enough for that, and the Girl and I have watched the tv series of Pride and Prejudice so I can't wait to read that to her.  So many books, so little time. There's a part of me that hopes they never move away from home, coz I'll miss this dreadfully.

In ten years' time, somebody remind me of this, ok?