Telling the Story in Your Own Words

Roald Dahl is a childhood staple so when Z and I went to the library, I grabbed The Enormous Crocodile. We got home and I started reading it to Z and he lost interest almost immediately. It's got quite a lot of text per page and I think it intimidated him. I also saw a bit of nervousness in his face when we got to the fourth line of the book: "The Enormous Crocodile grinned, showing hundreds of sharp white teeth. 'For my lunch today,' he said, 'I would like a nice juicy child.'" I could almost see Z's little throat make a ::gulp:: motion as he slipped off of the couch and snuck away.

A few days later, I picked up the book again and started to read it to him. This time, though, I paraphrased based on some quick page skimming and looking at the illustrations and by the end, Z was laughing! He really thought it was a funny story and was happy that The Enormous Crocodile got his in the end. It was just overwhelming for him with the specific vocabulary and amount of text in the book. So, this is a good lesson that you can take any story that you want to tell your child and make it appropriate for their age and attention level with just a little work from your own imagination. This opens up the amount of books that I can share with Z right now and that's very exciting!

Without sharp teeth,
K and Z


Buy The Enormous Crocodile on Amazon or find it at your local library.