CeeCeeandFunnyMadame

There’s a lovely little book called A Hole is to Dig by Ruth Krauss with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. It’s subtitled, ‘A First Book of First Definitions.’ It explains the world in charming and sensible ways such as, A face is so you can make faces; Steps are to sit on; and Dogs are to kiss people. (Obviously!) We'd like to add, Summer is to read. Summer is for long books, chapter books, books with beautiful illustrations! Summer is for reading in the grass, or on the sand, or a long car trip, or on your front steps, or sitting very near someone you love while they read to you. Let me see , you may say to them. Or, can we please read one more chapter ? Summer is for trips to the library and a long time there looking and looking and then carrying a big stack of books up to the librarian so you can check them out. Wow , the librarian says, you’re doing a lot of reading . Yes , you say, yes I am . Summer is to read and read and read. We hope you’re doing

This is how I remember learning the names of basic colors… I was on a family trip to the Brookfield Zoo. My mother gave each of us children our own bag of M&Ms. I ate mine very slowly – I was savoring them and I was very young. My oldest brother offered to play a game with me. He removed one M&M at a time from my bag and held it up for me to see. If I identified the color correctly he would tell me I was right and give it to me. If I was wrong, he ate it. Before the bag was empty I had learned the names of all the colors.