Adventures in Process

I grew up in theatre, so permanently emblazoned upon my brain is the phrase, A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end."  Acting teachers were pretty tired of scenes that lacked an end, I think.  Anyhow, the theatre where I grew up recently did a production of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie based on the book by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felisha Bond.  My daughter definitely enjoyed it. 

This was several months ago.  Last night, we read If You Give a Dog a Doughnut by the same author-illustrator team.  She loved it, and I loved seeing her "get" how cause and effect works.  (It reminds me of the "if...then" statements in the BASIC language of computers, but I digress).  She proved her comprehension even more tonight when she started telling a story (showing off her--as Every Child Ready to Read 1 would call them-- "Narrative Skills) "If you give a llama a book."  I asked her questions to prompt along the tale, but her imagination carried it.  While, unlike the books in the Numeroff-Bond series, her story did not end where it began, I still enjoyed it.  More importantly, she did.