Here’s a story about my oldest granddaughter, then age five, told to me by her parents (also known as my son and daughter-in-law).

One night while watching the game show Jeopardy! an answer came up about a substance to be swallowed before a certain kind of X-ray.

Our then-kindergartener instantaneously responded: “What is barium?”

Which is correct.

“How do you know that?” asked the astonished parents.

“It’s in Franna’s Curious George book,” said my granddaughter.

And so it is. I’ve read it to her countless times.

George being prepped for an X-ray after swallowing a puzzle piece in Curious George Goes to the Hospital,
Margret and H.A. Rey, 1966.

She never tires of this book and asks me to read it to her even now when, at age seven, she can read anything she wants on her own. My son once found one of his theology books in her bed.

I recall that that one of the greatest Jeopardy! champs of all time, James Holzhauer, said that he prepared for the show by reading children’s books in the library: “I don’t know why more people don’t do it.”

My little X-ray expert’s future looks so promising.

Lord, let me be here to see it.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge