Stories are light

 “Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. 

Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.” 

The Tale of Despereaux, Kate Dicamillo 

My mom told me about this blog post that Ann Patchett wrote titled "Why We Need Life-Changing Books Right Now" with rave reviews about Kate Dicamillo's brilliance as a writer.  

Kate Dicamillo has been a favorite of ours for years-- The Tale of Despereaux, Mercy the Pig, The Mysterious Journey of Edward Tulane, Flora and Ulysses, The Magician's Elephant, Because of Winn-Dixie, Great Joy, and many more.  

Ann Patchett writes that another writer she knew had shared with her that she had just finished reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo to her son, and that "it had cracked them open and made them better people." This inspired Ann Patchett to pick up Kate Dicamillo's books and see for herself how masterful she was. She writes, "That night I read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and, well, it changed my life. I couldn’t remember when I had read such a perfect novel. I didn’t care what age it was written for. The book defied categorization. I felt as if I had just stepped through a magic portal, and all I had to do to pass through was believe that I wasn’t too big to fit. This beautiful world had been available to me all along but I had never bothered to pick up the keys to the kingdom." 

With this reminder of the magic of these books, I asked Anna and Taylor if they would be willing to indulge me this weekend and allow me to read this book out loud to them.  They gave me a huge gift this afternoon, and we sat down on the couch and read the whole thing. 

About half way through the book, I told them that we could finish tomorrow, but Taylor said, "Are you enjoying reading it out loud to us?" When I said "yes", he said, "then, keep on reading."  That made me cry just about as much as the ending of the book as it has been such a long week and this just felt like we got to freeze time for a little while.  What a sweet memory of reading this to the kids when they were little in Nashville and now during this wild time we are living in when I just needed to cuddle up with them again with this beautiful story. 

Dani joined us for the end of our reading time--