Reading aloud

The day before yesterday I actually only meant to write about a funny misunderstanding while reading to Lukas and Katie, but got carried away explaining more background than anybody could possibly need or care about, so ended up cutting out the main point...so here it is as a separate post.

I'm reading (among many other books) The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong to Katie and Lukas at the moment. (Well, not at this exact moment...they're in bed right now, which is a good place for them to be. "At the moment" in this case means over the last week or so.) It's a rather riveting book, and the schedule seems to think it should take us several weeks to read. HA! is all we have to say to THAT idea! Anyway, yesterday I was reading chapter 14 (as well as chapter13 and started 15 but then we had to leave or Katie would have been late to her drama class). The book is set in the Netherlands, I would guess in the mid-1800s, not really sure, and the six schoolchildren of the village of Shora are intent on having storks nest in their town. Not that any of that is really relevant to my point. Anyway, in chapter 14 , "The Tots in the Tower", two of the younger-than-school-age children (I'm guessing around four or five years old) see the door to the belltower standing open and go to explore. The tower also happens to have a single jail-cell, currently unoccupied, which the children look at in awe.

Along one side of the stone room was a cage with bars. It intrigued Linda.

There was an old bare cot in the back of the cage. It was suspended from the wall by two heavy chains. Suddenly Linda remembered--this was the jail where they put bad men! She told Jan. They both breathed heavily. But outside, the other children were yelling nice and loud, and through the open door they could see the dike.

As I kept reading, Lukas interrupted me and asked why there was a bear in the tower. I was confused and said there wasn't, and he said yes, there was, I had just read it--there was a bear caught in the back of the cage!

It took a moment for me to figure out what he was talking about. Then we had a mini-lesson on homonyms before continuing to read the chapter, but I haven't been able to get the image of an old bear caught in the back of the cage, suspended from the wall by two heavy chains, ever since!