Calebite

Colin and Caleb have become voracious readers, and so our local library is once again being ravaged by their little hands.  Last week Caleb took out a graphic novel.  Yesterday he finished it, and was excited to share with me:

"Mom, it's called "War of the Worlds."  I thought it was going to be a history book about all the wars that have been fought by all the countries..."

(that's what he was hoping it was about?  Strange subject matter for a six year old.)

"...but instead it was about these aliens who come and invade earth."

He continued on, telling me the beginnings of the story.  Then, his vocabulary shifted, and he began to relate the story in first person:

"The next thing I knew I was in this cage.  All the others were adults.  I started looking around for some way to get the lock open....

...the aliens were coming down on us hard, and I was so afraid inside...

...the aliens were killing everyone around me, until there were only four of us left..."

I listened, amazed.  I know that the idea of a book is that you find yourself immersed in a world.  But I have never heard a child tell the storyline of a book in first person, as though they were experiencing it themselves.

"Then I was just too frightened by it all, so I tried to shake myself out of it and just finish reading it."

I don't know if he saw himself in the plot or if he drifted off in a daydream, but either way Caleb's imagination is more vivid than any other child I've met.