Books bring "Aha" to things in life...

"The rule that saved my life was that there is an exception to every rule," Aaron Likens, Finding Kansas.

Stop and think about that for a moment. I did. When I really let the depth of that quote hit me, I was doing what I hope for every reader to do with books...let them affect you. Apply. Grapple. Try and find meaning in.

Now that particular quote may not have hit you in the same way it did me, but remember the post I did earlier about readers needing to be "ready."  This statement has incredible meaning to me because it is applicable to someone in MY life, an experience in my world, right now.

It made something make sense for me...outside the book.

BUT - it took effort and energy for me to force myself to stop, not gloss over, and pay attention to that one little sentence amongst a plethora of other sentences. That takes MINDFULNESS as we are reading.

We need to be modeling that when we are reading aloud...we need to teach our children to pause and dwell on smaller parts - maybe not a sentence, but maybe an event that takes place or a character's actions or words. Be choosy. Don't just stop willy-nilly...teach them, so they will start to do it.

They will, by nature, want to give you a quick answer and keep going. But slowing them down and allowing them to "struggle" to go deeper is good.

As they unpack it, they will get to new layers of understanding. Remember, they may not go as deep as you do. They might not be ready due to their schema being less complex about things. That's ok.

You will find as they do, they will also begin to ask questions. Questions about why and how. That's good.

That means they are THINKING