Little House on the Road

I'm getting a chuckle out of following the blogger Poppins, her children, and her in-laws, on their mini-van journey around Laura Ingalls Wilder territory. Visiting one of the sites in some already-wintry weather, she comments,

The way the shanty groaned and shook as the wind howled around us was quite astonishing.  We were all struck by sober thoughts.  Except Matthias, since he was just happy to be running around chasing one of the farm cats. Some day the abstract concepts of the world will catch up to him, but until then he'll be a Zen-master of living in the moment.

My father read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books aloud to me when I was a little girl. (Thank you, Dad!) Both of us loved the series. One of these days I hope to share them with Junior. Our current read-aloud is a [gag]Goosebumps[/gag] selection. (How did I get talked into that? Captain Underpants is Beowulf in comparison. Or, perhaps, The Canterbury Tales. I digress.) After this one, Junior will be free to read the next Goosebumps on his own. Or better yet: I'll get one of the new graphic versions, which TangognaT recommended, for him; I can see how comic-book illustrations would help. A lot.