Aug 9, 2025 4 min read

My son has begun devouring books.

One might think, “A writer whose son loves reading. She must be delighted!” But I did not write, My son loves reading. I wrote, My son has begun devouring books. The latter is both more dramatic and considerably more accurate.

The other night, we came to the last page in the thrilling race car book, “Go, Cat, Go!” That page is a toddler’s sensory dream, filled with colorful characters to look at and a big, textured picnic basket to touch.

The smorgasbord of realistic-looking food is a great learning opportunity. I point to the bottled water and tell my son the drivers stay hydrated; I bet Jaguar Joe is so good at racing because he eats bananas instead of cupcakes.

My son usually tires quickly of this pseudo-educational narration and we move on to another book. This night, however, he was captivated by the pictures and, possibly, my spiel. He eyed the cupcake (definitely my son) before pointing to the grapes, which are among his favorite snacks in real life.

And then my brilliant little boy lifted the book to his face, stuck out his tongue, and licked the page.

How to explain to a 19-month-old the concept of a picture? It’s difficult enough teaching him to “Stop!” when we reach the end of a sidewalk, or “In your mouth, not on the ground!” when he tries tossing the remainder of his dinner on the floor – and those are concrete lessons. A picture is abstract; what’s toddler-speak for “an image is a representation of a thing that exists in the real world?” I couldn’t adequately explain to him that, to paraphrase Rene Magritte, “This is not a grape,” when we were clearly looking at a bunch of grapes. So I just said, “You can’t eat that!” through a big belly laugh.

I felt badly laughing at my son’s obvious confusion. He looked at me, then stretched the book out and studied the page, as if confirming those were, indeed, grapes. Satisfied his eyes had not deceived him, my little guy again licked the page and I laughed – quieter, this time – when he grunted in frustration that the grapes tasted like board book and not fruit.

I did a better job tampering my chuckles when, a few days later, we identified the objects in a Richard Scarry board book. On one page, Frannie the bunny throws a ball to her friend, and my son enthusiastically pointed to the ball.

“A ball, that’s right!” I encouraged him.

He again pointed to the ball, and shrieked loudly.

“You do love throwing ball!” I said. “Can you say ‘ball?'”

My son began picking at the book, as though he could peel the illustration off the page and toss it to me in the middle of the living room. But pick and point and try as he might, the ball would not magically bounce out of the book.

“It’s a picture of a ball,” I said over my son’s increasingly loud, frustrated babbles. “We can throw a real ball if you’d like.”

But he is 19 months old and would not like that. He’d rather conjure a ball out of book-thin air. Isn’t that the toddler way?

Eventually, I distracted him with a tower of alphabet blocks ready for toppling, and the book ball was quite forgotten.

I haven’t forgotten my son’s new “taste” for reading, though. I only hope that, despite his inability to interact with the illustrations, he continues to enjoy holding books in his hands and that, as he grows, so, too, will his passion for stories.

Because I’m a writer, and yeah, I’d be delighted if I raised a son who loves reading.