Thursday, January 08, 2015

The Joy of Myth

Last week my dad got me a book called 'The Well Trained Mind' (Amazon link).  It's basically a book about the educational upbringing of your children with a heavy emphasis on home-schooling.  While I'm not about to go the home-schooling route, the book seems like an excellent plan for those who do.  I'll be using it as a big ol' suggestion box for things to supplement the education the kids are getting at school.
One thing that it emphasizes is exposing young children to the myths and stories of the classic world.  This means the Greeks and Egyptians of course, but it also suggests the Babylonians and Chinese and such.  We've touched on some of these but probably not enough.
This Sunday we went to the bookstore so that Relia could use her new kids club discount card.  While she was looking at books, I noticed a large bookshelf dedicated to children's versions of the classics.  I grabbed the opportunity and picked up a book of Greek myths.  I showed it to DF and he quickly turned up his nose.
Well, so be it.  I simply told him that the next time I read them bedtime stories, we were going to read from that and I didn't really care if he objected.  I picked a story about Hercules.  He was hooked.  He loved it.  He insisted on another story and then insisted that the FP Gal read from it the next night.  This shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose.  The Greek myths have captivated readers for literally millennia. 
So now I'll go back and find another one.  There was a book on Roman myths (which probably covers much of the same cast).  I'll look for the Egyptians and the Chinese too.  It feels like a world has opened for him. 
Several worlds.

3 comments:

DD4 said...

Your kids are being exposed to many avenues of interest. They're lucky!

Sarita said...

Yeah, I've had it up to here with Hercules.

Peder said...

I love that he's asking me questions about the story the next day. He's ready for a more *complete* book about Herc. Be prepared!