The Black Informant

The cutest thing

Now I NEVER use the word “cute”, but what happened yesterday brought it out of me.

When I read to my kids, I am usually very animated (something I learned from my Mom). Although it can be challenging at times to contort my baritone voice into the voice of a little girl or woman, the kids never seem to mind. In fact, it makes the story funnier.

Yesterday while in the library, I was reading to my kids when all of a sudden these two handsome brown angels came nearby with their mother as she looked for books. While they sat on the mat closest to us, I could tell that I had grabbed their interest just by reading the story to my kids. Little by little the youngest of the two inched over to us with his few books in hand until he was right there peering over the book next to my daughter. Like I always do, I stopped several times in the story to ask questions like “What would you do?” and “Was that a good thing?” and he was more that happy to answer with nods then eventually speech. When I finished the book, I asked him if he had a book he wanted me to read. So he reached into his little stack and handed me a book on baseball. “Baseball is my favorite!” he said. So enjoying this impromptu role as “Soul” Reader Rabbit, I began to read the book.

At about the third page or so his brother (who was sitting nearby on the mat) came and sat next to me. Then he actually laid his head right on my shoulder as I continued reading the story.

Well, with all of them (except my son) being 6 and under, they quickly lost interest about halfway into the story and moved on to something else. Nevertheless, it was a brief moment in time that I will not soon forget.

Earlier, their mother had asked me if I minded that they were including themselves in our reading time. I told her “Certainly not”! Still I was still a little surprised that she didn’t seem to mind that her kids were so close to a stranger. “Did these kids have a father at home?”, “If so, did their father ever read to them?” are the questions that went through my mind. Regardless, this was yet another tender exchange between a Black father and children uncaptured and unspoiled by mainstream media and the howling of critics.