Children’s Books

4,100 Pages of Harry Potter

/ bperica / 2 Comments

On July 16th, I read the last page of the Harry Potter books to London. It had taken me one year, two months, and four days to read that page and the previous 4,099 to her. Before May 12, 2014, I had never made an earnest attempt at even reading the first book. I had made more of an attempt at watching the movies, but had only made it through the first two and started and failed to finish the third movie on several occasions.

By the time I got to page 759 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I felt I was finishing more than a book, but a saga of both literature and life. The obvious saga, that of Harry Potter’s journey from Four Privet Drive to the climactic duel with Lord Voldemort, and the less obvious saga, of London’s journey from her 102nd day in the NICU (the day I started the first book) to her fourteenth month at home, and her seventeenth month of life.

HP Books

Beautiful artwork on all the covers of these increasingly heavy books.

When I cracked open Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone it was an act of therapy. I did not know if I would finish all the books. I did not know if I would be able to read all of them to London. However, as time went by, it became clearer and clearer to me that I would finish the books, that London would hear every page of these books, and that just because we got out of the NICU did not mean the reading of the books ceased to be therapeutic.

In the beginning, it was easy to find time to read Harry Potter to London. I would place her on a pillow in my lap and could read for as long as I like really, assuming she was oxygenating well and in a comfortable position. When she left the NICU, I read several times a day to her, while she was on the floor making cooing noises, while she was falling asleep, and while she was taking a feeding from her NG tube. Later on, I only read to her as she fell asleep for naps. And a little later on from that, she stopped falling asleep if I was by her side reading Harry Potter. This coincided with her ability to pull to a standing position, so she would stand inside her crib and reach out for the pages of the book and get frustrated that she couldn’t grab them.

Eventually, I had to start reading Harry Potter to her when she was in the living room playing with toys. By this last stage, I knew that my voice comforted her. I could read a whole chapter and sometimes two while she played. I may have pushed the limit on July 16, when I read the last sixty pages to her in one sitting as she drained all the fun out of one toy to the next until she was clearly wondering why I had been reading to her for so long without any breaks.

On more than one occasion during the last several days of reading Harry Potter I choked up because it would dawn on me that I am almost done with the books, or I would remember in a flash how far London has come over these 4,100 pages, so incredibly far as you may know.

I take great joy in knowing that I will be able to read these books once again to London when she is older and able to follow the plot. Perhaps I won’t read every word aloud to her. She might take over. That is fine with me. I know I will always be reading with London.

*Special thanks to my wife’s family who let me borrow all of their pristine, hard cover, first edition Harry Potter books.

28 Weeks, Not Too Early to Start Reading

/ bperica / 7 Comments
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Reading In the Night Kitchen, one of my favorites.

Posted near the hand-washing station at the NICU entrance is a sign promoting the NICU library. By the looks of it, they have all the classics: Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Guess How Much I Love You. However, even though I looked forward to reading to my kids, I was a bit skeptical about reading to a baby who weighs four pounds and is on bubble CPAP. How could I even concentrate enough on a kid’s book? How could she hear me over the noises of the NICU?

The skepticism did not last long. After so many hours next to the isolette I had to do something to keep my sanity. Kate and I started reading to London while she was still vented, pre-30 weeks gestational age. Too early? Yeah, but we sensed a theme with London, she wants to do everything early. Why not oblige her? Plus, reading is a love of mine and I want it to be for my daughter too.

We started with a book of Disney short stories. I introduced In the Night Kitchen, An Awesome Book (by Dallas Clayton, one of my favorites), and On the Night You Were Born. London not only was calm while I read to her, she satted high too. Her eyes would wander around, trying to find my voice. I was hooked.

But what do you do when you’ve read every kids book you own several times already? Easy, you start over if your kid is old enough to make requests. But London couldn’t so I moved on to magazines and novels. The New Yorker…why not? I started reading from The New Yorker app on my phone, but then began bringing the magazines into the NICU. The subject of the piece did not matter to London. As long as she heard my voice and could watch my mouth move and see my face we were making progress. I read about the origins of house music in Berlin clubs, Amazon’s effect on the publishing industry, and the start of Under Armour. Sometimes I had to whisper the words to her because they weren’t exactly NICU-appropriate.

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Introducing London to Middle Earth in the NICU. The Hobbit. Read April 21-May 7.

Done with the magazines, a novel was next. Having seen the second of The Hobbit movies just a week before London arrived, and not having read the book since my freshman year of college, I had a strong desire to read the book again. I read this one from my iPad. I would shut the curtain to London’s pod for a little privacy, pick her up from the isolette, sit down in the recliner, rest her on one half of the pillow and the iPad on the other, and start reading. We finished The Hobbit in two weeks, every word of it read out loud to London as she drifted in and out of sleep on the pillow in front of me. We finished on May 7. By May 12, I had selected the next book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which meant I was committing London to a lot of listening and, for me, a lot of reading, because you can’t just read one book in a series. Well, you can, when the series sucks, but I didn’t expect that to be the case with Harry Potter. I had never read more than ten pages of a Harry Potter book. Now we are 250 pages into the third book.

I guess all the previous paragraphs represent my attempt at telling you it is never too early to read to your kid. It is hugely beneficial. Even before London was “full-term” she knew my reading voice from my regular voice. Realizing this could not have encouraged me more. She even smiled in response to the sound and rhythm of the words when she knew I was reading to her. She still does. Sometimes she flails around on the floor in pure excitement at the sound of the words and the sight of the book. And at other times she rests in the mamaRoo, so intensely focused on the movement of my mouth that I can see the learning in her eyes. And when she falls asleep I stop at the end of the page so, together, we won’t miss a word.