As I've noted before, one of my favorite things to do as a parent is to share interesting and unusual books with our girls at every possible opportunity. Sometimes, the results aren't terribly well received, like the time I read aloud from an old inductive logic book over dinner or the night I shared some passages from Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Other times, the girls are genuinely interested in what I am reading and they ask me to share a bit with them. I have, of course, obliged on a number of occasions, sharing pieces from books like Chaim Potok's The Chosen and Richard Poe's Afrocentric historical study Black Spark, White Fire.There was also the wonderful evening when I received a rare first printing of Voltairine de Cleyre's Selected Works in the mail and the girls sat by and watched closely as I carefully opened the book, showed them de Cleyre's portrait and read some of her poems for them. (To this day, Baby Z. says she will someday have a daughter named Voltairine. Really.) I must say that it's nice to help our girls to develop interests and knowledge that extends beyond the limitations of mass marketing and popular culture.
Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting on the swing in front of my in-laws' house enjoying a rare, gentle July breeze as I relished the end of the workweek. I took advantage of this down time to read some of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children which I had started a week or so prior. My rather busy schedule had prevented me from spending more than a few minutes every few days with the book.
After a short time, the girls noticed that I was sitting outside and Baby Z. ran out to join me. She scrambled up into the swing next to me, grabbed a hold of my arm and laid her head on my chest. She looked down at the book and said, 'Read that book to me.” I had just finished the section in the book in which Mother Courage's son Swiss Cheese was executed, so I figured that the next few pages might be rather unremarkable.
So, I started reading to Z. from the beginning of Scene Four but about halfway down the page, I realized that I had indeed come upon some subject matter that wasn't entirely age-appropriate for my young, audience. This scene featured a young soldier who was furious with his captain and was looking to exact some revenge. I stopped reading as I scanned the remainder of the page to see what I had gotten myself into and I silently read the following:YOUNG SOLDIER: Screw the Captain! Where is the son of a bitch? Swiping my reward, spending it on brandy for his whores, I'll rip his belly open!
AN OLDER SOLDIER (coming after him): Shut your hole, you'll wind up in the stocks.
YOUNG SOLDIER: Come out, you thief, I'll make lamb chops out of you! I was the only one in the squad who swam the river and he grabs my money, I can't even buy myself a beer. Come on out! And let me slice you up!
AN OLDER SOLDIER (coming after him): Shut your hole, you'll wind up in the stocks.
YOUNG SOLDIER: Come out, you thief, I'll make lamb chops out of you! I was the only one in the squad who swam the river and he grabs my money, I can't even buy myself a beer. Come on out! And let me slice you up!
I wasn't entirely sure what to do at this point, as Baby Z. seemed fairly interested in the subject matter and I have to admit that it's awfully nice to have my little one cuddled up next to me, intent on sharing in what is so obviously rather interesting to me. So I substituted my own "revised” version of the passage and said something like this:
"Well, ummm…See, this young guy is mad at the Captain – really mad, see – and he wants to get the Captain really, really badly because the Captain took his money….or something. And he's really going to get him, I guess. And then this other guy comes along and tells him to be quiet, but the young guy won't because he's really mad. Yeah."
It was at this point that Baby Z. hopped down from the swing abruptly and said, "Okay…Can we do something else?” I asked her if she wanted to know what happened to Mother Courage and she said, rather matter-of-factly, "That book is boring.” Then she toddled off to the garage to get her tricycle so she could ride it in the driveway for a while. Ah well, it was nice for a moment, anyway.
I wondered if Brecht is really boring to a 5 year-old or if it was just came across as boring because I dumbed it down. Whatever the case, I always appreciate the candor of our girls and I figure that someday when they come back to these authors and books of their own accord, they might feel a small spark of recollection and ultimately end up with some greater appreciation for what we've tried to share with them along the way.
