Stories for my son

We have this book called Martin and Tommy, given by a dear friend. Out of habit, I checked the blurb and oh my.. it was written in the 1920s. It's ancient! Almost a collector's item. Of course, it is a reprint, but still, the idea of having a story dated before WW1 is cool.

Equally interesting is that the book was written by the author when his son was admitted into the hospital. As he would visit him everyday, he would bring a drawing or a short story to keep the boy entertained.

Probably inspired or influenced by the author, I have been writing stories for Gooly too. He likes reading stories with him as the protagonist.

Now that he is in school, he asks every morning, "Can you write me a story?"

And this is what I have been doing. Writing stories for him every morning. I do ask what kind of stories he would like. So far, he has asked for dinosaur stories, detective stories and today he wanted a bicycle story.

I know this has enticed him to read more. He enjoys 'his' stories a lot - feeling proud when I made him the hero and happy when I write about fun times with his friends.

This is really a two-fold approach - he reads more and is interested to write. I even included a cliff hanger for today's story. I will ask him how to end it later tonight.

Every night, we read the stories I have written especially for him. Sometimes he illustrates for me.

"I need to sleep so I can dream about your story for tomorrow," I tell him. It makes better sense than 'inspiration'. Thus, he hurries off to sleep so I can sleep too with the mission of dreaming about his stories. How convenient. :-)

I like it when he says, "Write a story for me please when I am in school," because when I do, he knows I am thinking of him (and missing him a little).

It takes just 5 minutes of my morning schedule to write him a simple story. His exuberance and smiles when reading it - priceless.

If you are 4 and below, read the stories here. (Only two stories. The rest were penned.)