As an English teacher, I wanted to bring K's little girl a piece of my own heart: a book. But what book could be appropriate for a six month old baby? K isn't an Einstein Baby type of mom, who reads her child Tolstoy whilest listening to Beethoven. So I decided to visit a book store and just see what was in stock. I looked through the selections, noting the hipster baby books about Brooklyn and Paris, and the lovely, hard bound classics with hunter green ink. And then I saw Pat the Bunny.
Pat the Bunny, written in 1940, is a "touch and feel" book that encourages toddler readers to string together letters to form a word while at the same time encouraging the little reader to touch a correlative material. And, as a little girl, I LOVED touching and learning from this picture book. Flipping through the cardboard pages, I remembered how the downy fur of bunny Pat always seemed so thick and white; I remembered touching the sandpaper that made up "daddy's scratchy beard."
I bought a shiny new copy of Pat the Bunny to K and her little girl along with other books and gifts. Guess what became the literary star of the weekend? We kept returning to the little book, a book that takes no more than ten minutes to read; even K's husband, a handsome footballer turned rancher, who can hold the baby and the book in each of his big hands, returned to Pat the Bunny.
Pat the Bunny may be simple in concept, but it carries an important message: reading is not an inert activity that involves only our eyes to make meaning of characters. Reading heightens all of our senses, creating indelible sensory memories that impress upon us-- yes, even like the soft faux fur of Pat the Bunny.
