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After seeing @MrSchuReads & @jasminewarga rave about @studiocastillo’s OUR FRIEND HEDGEHOG: THE STORY OF US, I added it to my last indie bookstore order and read it w/ my 4-year-old yesterday. Today, I’m reflecting on the magic of books & the ways kids process them. (Thread)
I thought we’d read a few chapters, but my kid wanted to keep going until we finished. She was transfixed, but she also seemed worried and a little sad. So we stopped every once in a while to discuss & look back at the introduction to remember that all the characters would be ok.
She wanted to flip ahead to the end to see the last illustrations & know how things ended, so we did that, too. After we finished the whole book in one go, she took it from me, set it on the table, & walked away. She was very quiet. It’s a loving, lovely book about friendship...
But I was nervous that the parts about missing friends had upset her. She’s been very emotional lately (as most of us have, with very good reason) and I was thinking maybe I should have handled things differently when she seemed worried. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready for the book.
But then about a minute later, she came back, picked up the book, and said, “I’m going to look at the pictures by myself now.” She took it to the couch and flipped through every page. Then she said, “Now you pretend you don’t know what it’s about and I’ll tell you.”
She showed me all the characters and explained all the things that happened. She spent a full hour looking back through the book, mostly quietly, and sometimes talking about it. This morning, she did the same thing again.
She hasn’t asked me to read it again yet. She’s processing it on her own for now, keeping control in the way she seems to need. It’s just SO cool to watch. I taught middle school for 10 years so I’ve watched many older kids engage with stories and decide what they’re ready for.
But the experience is new for me with my own, much younger kids. What a great reminder about the power of beautiful, emotional stories (all the time, but especially when things are hard) and kids’ capacity to know & show what they need. 
