We have just come home from watching the movie adaptation of The Lorax.
We have been reading Dr. Seuss books to Jakjak for quite a while now. In fact, the time has already come that Jakjak has started reading on his own (and I mean, really read and not just pretend reading). As with the majority of Dr. Seuss books, The Lorax is one of those that engages a child's imagination and yet subliminally injects little lessons in life that is meant to help a child in developing good habits.
We enjoyed reading the Lorax, so much in fact, that there was a time that Jakjak would only ask us to read it for weeks as his bedtime story. Of course, that being said, we were especially excited when the movie trailer was shown for The Lorax. We already knew what to expect, because of the adaptation of Horton Hears a Who. Adaptations of books don't necessarily have to be the exact narration of the book. And we were right. It was a good interpretation of a classic, and by no means was it half baked. Still, we were (and still are) fans of the actual book and we kind of expected more. But then again, it is not a mere adaptation, it is more of an update. I mean, the book was first published in 1972 after all. And to appeal to today's audience means it needs to be 21st century material, and that effort paid off with a well made Lorax movie.
Well, now it is Jakjak who speaks for the trees. And he says that we would need to plant more seeds that turn into trees. But we only seem to have monggo seeds at home, and that means we have to plant hundreds of monggo seeds. And so now we go home to plant seeds for the Brown Barba-loots, the Humming-Fish and the Swomee-Swans. I just hope that this upcoming generation will be taught about the importance of nature in time to save Gaea.
It's 11:52 in the evening. It's almost midnight. We have been trying to put Jakjak to bed since half-past eight. And now that we're all sleepy, we finally decide to put the lights out. Then, to our horror, we hear a fiendish scream. "Noooo!". Silence. "I want a story!". It was Jakjak asking for his bedtime story.
Yes, even if we had been in bed for hours, Jakjak would not sleep, nor even ask for his bedtime story until the last minute. So, his stories end up near midnight most of the time. Sometimes, especially if we came from a trip somewhere in the city, we would be too tired to be reading. He would be tired too, but his day wouldn't be complete without a bedtime story.
I remember being too tired and sleepy that the story I had been reading turned out to be slurred words that didn't make sense, paragraphs that had been repeated more than once and pages that have been skipped (and double backed). Fortunately, Jakjak has memorized most (if not all) of his books. He sometimes corrects us when we say the wrong words or he protests when we skip a page. When he's really, really tired though, he just doesn't mind and merely waits for "The End".
He can read now. And those green back Dr. Seuss books are already easy for him to read. For some reason, he still asks us to read him those stories. I don't know if he has just gotten used to it as a habit or if he really prefers someone reading to him. Still, we do our best to oblige (sometimes I barter a trade for the number of stories he wants read). He has grown a lot too. I believe that these stories have not just helped him with his reading, but with his emotional and psychological growth as well (yep, we blame his crazy antics and vocabulary on Dr. Seuss and 'yus, yus, yus' from Pigling Bland).
Our advise? Read as much as you can to your little one. You never know how much he will grow with it. I didn't have bedtime stories that I could actually remember, and I wanted Jakjak to have his.
