The Gruffalo Recording
Hey, Penpals.
I originally wanted to dust off the blog with a little Pokémon analysis, but The Gruffalo came to my attention. The Gruffalo was a favorite book of mine growing up, along side The Mercy Watson Series, Mutts, and Peter Rabbit. My sister and I lived and breathed The Gruffalo. One of my core memories is when our mom took us to see the play in this big fancy theater within a college town. At every change we got, we’d ask mom to read. Her narration of the book was silly and expressive.
You know that phase when a child has to read or watch a thing over and over and over? Well, we may have done that with The Gruffalo. It got to the point where we memorized it line by line without even reading the book ourselves!
How do I know this? Why am I bringing this up? Well, a family member is having a baby, and one of the gifts they wanted were some children’s books. My parents saw the beautifully beastly book and bought it again. We lost our copy, I believe... No matter, they bought it again and started to reminisce. My dad then said, “Oh, I think I have a recording of Bella reading The Gruffalo.”
I was between five and seven when he pulled me aside and asked if we could ‘read’ The Gruffalo. Then years and years later, he told us the truth. My dad— being the silly little guy he is— decided to record me reciting The Gruffalo and didn’t tell me until I was in my early twenties.
I’m still shocked, not at the fact he recorded his kid being cute, no, that’s pretty normal parent behavior. I can’t even be mad, I find it funny. But I’m shocked at how I memorized this whole book. I parroted my mom!
Here’s the recording.
Thanks, Dad!
