I love to start the day with coffee and a quick look at the memories that pop up on my phone “on this day (x) years ago.” An old photo or a funny quote from one of my children is a great way to start the day. Today’s memory was the image above that I saved several years ago. I love this quote. It is lines like this that make me truly love children’s books.
Children like to reread stories themselves or have someone read the same story to them many, many times. Parents often joke they can recite certain books from memory. Words like these make those 10,000 rereads so very important. As a young child falls asleep listening to the story being read aloud, I hope these words seep deep into their mind. I hope they realize A.A. Milne’s message wasn’t simply dialogue between two characters in a book, but rather he was speaking to his young readers.
Readers often identify the characters in books, even when those characters are animals (you may recall the many times I’ve discussed “The One and Only Ivan”). Reading (or hearing) those lines in a book in addition to hopefully being internalized, shows young readers true compassion between friends. While the image shows Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, it was actually said by Christopher Robbins to Winnie the Pooh (the quote appears in “The House at Pooh Corner”). The quote in its entirety is even better “Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver thank you believe, and stronger thank you seem, and smarter than you think.” The words I love most “promise me you’ll always remember.”
I hope every young reader who hears Winnie the Pooh read aloud or reads the book on their own, always remembers those words.