Kobo Night!

Back in the Fall, I was fortunate to win a Kobo eReader from She's Connected. Ever in love with new gadgets, my older boys immediately started pestering me to let them use it. We reached a compromise in which I am reading them a couple Grimm's Fairy Tales, from the Kobo's preloaded library of classics, a few nights a week. I anticipated them losing interest in the Grimm's Tales fairly quickly -- the antiquated language, the delivery of the stories, and the un-Disneyfied endings not being something I expected to hook them.

I was so wrong.

Instead, my 7-year old asks me every night if tonight is a "Kobo Night". My almost 9-year old has been expanding his vocabulary with some fabulous underutilized (and somewhat archaic) English, and we've had great discussions about the evolution of women's property rights, the motivations for people to rewrite the stories with happier endings, and why they are called "Fairy" tales if they're not actually about fairies.

They love the darkness in many of the stories, and are eager to discuss the meaning of each one once it's been read. We dicker and bargain over how many of the short tales (4 - 20 pages long each) we will read each night, and amazingly my middle son actually requested we read some more on his movie night instead of watching a movie!

I loved the Grimm's Tales as a child and am so very happy that my boys are developing a love and fascination for them, too. I can't wait to move on to "Around The World In 80 Days"!

What childhood favorites of yours do you love reading to your little ones?