Last night as I tucked my son in to bed, I told him I missed the days of bedtime stories.

(Honestly, the conversation started with us wishing for simpler days without homework, but I digress).

And then my son said, “I’m not too old for bedtime stories.”

Inside my heart did somersaults. I was so excited.

I grabbed an old favorite, Grandfather Twilight.

This has always been one of our favorites. It’s a quick read about the old man that brings twilight to the Earth. It’s full of beautiful imagery.

Now that my son is older, I pointed out all the personification. We talked about the symbolism and the way the images captured the author’s words. We chatted about big kid stuff with our little kid tradition of bedtime stories.

It reminded me how important it is to step back and reconnect to the traditions of the past, even with our pre-teen boys.

That book is the same as it always was. I could almost recite it from memory. But, now that book is different for us. Now we can talk about word choice and literary elements. We can make connections.

It’s so easy to do with this with picture books and quick reads. My son and I talk about novels we read all the time, but we are rarely in the same place at the same time or we are reading them at different times. With a picture book we can connect around literature in the moment.

Now we have a new addition for our old tradition of bedtime stories.