Creative reading

I am proud to say that Mark is a chip off the ol' block when it comes to reading. He loves it, and I encourage it by providing him with a stocked bookcase and easy access to the library.

I also encourage it for another purely selfish reason. Story time is my very favorite part of the day -- when we cuddle up on my bed, read to each other, and wind down from our busy days, together.

Mark is a great reader. However, when he's really tired, his mouth trips a bit, and he skips lazily over whole sentences. I usually take over at the point, because I know he's tired and ready for bed. But last night his errors were so funny, I let him read a good three or four pages before I took my turn.

He'd picked out a book called Star Wars: Epic Battles. Since Star Wars has a language all its own, I knew I was in for some interesting interpretations.

"Star Wars: Eric Battles," he started.

"Epic Battles, not Eric," I corrected.

"What's epic mean?" he asked.

"Really big."

"Oh." He started the story. "Each planet, large or small, made its voice heard in a huge Senate building on the capital planet, Croissant --"

"Coruscant," I interrupted.

"Coruscant," he echoed. "As the conflict grew, the Republic later deployed its own army." He stopped abruptly and said, "That's messed up! They destroyed their own army?!"

"Deployed," I corrected. "It meant they sent the army out to battle. They didn't kill the army."

"Ohhhh," he said, nodding. He continued for a while, until he came to this: "Sith Lords often hire assistants, spies and bounty hunters to do their dirty work for them."

"That's assassins," I noted. "Sometimes assistants have to do dirty work, too, but not usually killing people."

He moved on to a sidebar about battle droids. "The Trade Federation built many million machine-shoulders called battle droids," he read.

"Machine-soldiers," I corrected. "I think only the Six Million Dollar Man had a machine shoulder."

"Who?" Mark asked, and I reminded myself not to reference '70s TV shows around a 9-year-old.

He gave it a good effort, but eventually started yawning after every other sentence. As amusing as it was, I took over the story. And faithfully read the words correctly, as they appeared on the pages.

Personally, I think the story suffered because of it. I definitely preferred Mark's version better!