The Knight and the Dragon

Last night, when I should have been sleeping, I was thinking of another clip from the vast collection of video we taped of the girls as they were growing. In this clip a very little Emma, maybe 1 ½ or 2, is sitting beside the bookcase in our living room, crisscross applesauce style, hunched over a book that is open in her lap. The book is The Knight and the Dragon, by Tomie dePaola, and it is one of her very favorites. The book has only two sentences: “Once upon a time, there was a knight in a castle who had never fought a dragon. And in a cave, not too far away, was a dragon who had never fought a knight.” The rest of the story is told completely through Tomie dePaola's wonderful illustrations. The book has been brought to life for Emma by the voice her daddy has given to these illustrations. Each time he read the story to her it was like a performance, complete with character voices, sound effects and even enthusiastic gestures. Emma would join in at her favorite parts, like when the bumbling knight and timid dragon charge each other for the first time. “Da, dada, da – charge!” You would hear Emma and Peter chant in unison.

But in the scene we filmed, Emma is telling herself the story. Hearing her little voice around the corner, we have snuck in from the kitchen to watch her. Peter has managed to grab the video camera almost without Emma noticing and begins to film. Emma is completely absorbed in the book, flipping the pages and reciting the dialogue she has heard her daddy perform for her hundreds of times. But then Peter makes a rookie mistake. “Hi Emm. What are you reading?” She looks up and seeing Peter there, immediately thrusts the book towards him in her outstretched hand. “That’s okay, Emma. Let’s hear you read it some more,” Peter tries.  But now she’s walking toward him, still holding the book out to him. “No, Daddy. Put down the camera, Daddy. Read the book, Daddy.” 

And with that the camera is switched off. But I know what happened next. Peter seated himself on the living room floor, Emma plopped herself into the comfortable nest formed by his crisscrossed legs, and another magical performance of The Knight and the Dragon began.