I read Clorinda by Robert Kinerk to Reid in the communal bathroom at the hotel. I’m not sure if anyone else heard me. Reid was interested enough in the tale of Clorinda the cow, who goes to town to vote in November (and I thought, are we reading a US get-out-the-vote book) and also learns to dance ballet in the barn before going to New York to try to make it in show biz. You never know what a person might be capable of, we read. Well, like all struggling performers, Clorinda ended up waiting table until she got her big break. Unfortunately, the big break required that Clorinda jump and be caught by this typically-sized male ballet dancer. He ended up flattened by Clorinda but the audience clapped because Clorinda had clearly tried hard to discover all that she could do. She retired to the farm to teach the other animals to dance and they put on ballets in the barn. It all worked out for the best, as usually happens in kids books.
At supper, I read Norman’s Snowball by Hazel Hutchins as we waited for our supper to arrive. At the beginning of the book, the sister tells us that Norman always loses his mittens and the mother attaches the mittens to a string before the sister takes him out to play. The main story is thay the two kids make a bigger and bigger snowball. At the end, the sister realizes Norman is wearing only his mittens, thanks to the strings, and his underwear. I hadn’t noticed this happening as the story unfolded. When I would have gone back to re-read the story, paying more attention to the illustrations and encouraging Reid to do so as well, Karin pointed out that Reid was nearly asleep and so we stopped reading. Another time we’ll notice.