Hi there,
Some time ago, I had some children stop by and ask me to read one of the children's books Linda and I have written. With great Joy, I complied and went inside my house to pick the last story we wrote together before her passing.
After a few short minutes, I came out again with a printout of our book in hand (there is no bound copy of it yet). With great anticipation, the children sat around me and awaited my first words. Not wanting to disappoint them, I quickly scanned the text of the first page so I could get in the "flow" of the story and read it aloud with lots of intonation. The image that came to mind while I was preparing for this was one from the movie "You've got mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (one of Linda's favorite movies). The scene I'm referring to is the one in which Tom and Meg meet in person for the first time at her mother's bookstore and where Tom watches as Meg does a great job reading a story to all the children gathered around her for "story time".
Well, to my surprise, as soon as I scanned the first page, I quickly realized that while the story was good, it was not written to be read aloud to young children. Not wanting to disappoint them, I decided to improvise on the go and so I did. Fortunately, they truly injoyed the story. I could see it in their eyes and faces as they followed the adventure.
Happy with my success, I went ahead and rewrote the entire story. What follows is this new version of the story "The Big Misunderstanding".