Learning Life Through Books

Our neighbor has her grandkids over at her house a lot and because of that, my kids have become good friends with them. One of their parents is going through a divorce and the cousins are now temporarily living together. As is so often the case, there are some growing pains going on that we hear about from the kids. After I called the kids in tonight for baths, I went outside to see that all the toys had been brought back inside. One of the boys, A, was out there and he was leaning down on his water gun so that it took me a minute to figure out exactly what he was doing.
"Oh," I said in revelation, "you're getting all the water out of it, eh?"
He said, "Yeah. I'm mad at J because he put the water in here wrong and he takes my toys and yesterday, when I wanted a Popsicle, he said it was his brother, C's, and I'd have to ask C for one...but then said he was going to tell C to say no anyway when I asked him."
"Wow," I agreed, "that doesn't sound very nice."

Later, at dinner, Matthew brought up the fact that A and J weren't speaking because they were mad at each other. And he sounded like he was empathizing with A and mad at J himself. He said, seemingly frustrated, "I can't wait until their small school break is over so I can talk to J about it!" I talked to him for a few minutes about not being mad at someone just because your friend is mad at them. It's ok to empathize with him but I felt he should think twice before he decided to also be mad at J, because he's friends with J too. He interrupted me with, "Mom, you know in my Harry Potter books..."
Thinking what I'd said went straight in one ear and other the other, I said, "mmm?"
He continued, "Well, Hermione and Ron get mad at each other a lot. They don't speak to each other for a long time."
I said, "Oh?"
"But Harry gets them together and fixes it for them," he said, giving me the thumbs-up signal and a wink.
"Ohhhh....so you're going to be Harry for A and J?"
"Yep," he said, "I'm gonna make them talk to each other again! That's why I can't wait for their school break to be over."

~Better than *any* book report I could have ever received, he not only followed the storyline (a minor storyline, at that) but he figured out what the author was really trying to say and applied it to his own life. I think Joanne Rowling would be quite pleased too.~