Dan and Louie

My 5-year-old has two new friends.  Their names are Dan and Louie.  And they're old.

Really old.  They were friends of mine when I was little.

They come to her through the stories of The Children's Bible on Cassette.  I found these old cassettes when we were at my parents' for Christmas.  I asked if I could borrow them for Kyla.  I really didn't think she'd get into them, but I thought I'd give it a try.  My siblings and I spent many hours in the car listening to them when we were growing up.

After my grandma passed away, I inherited a portable cd/cassette player.  So, one day when Kyla was particularly crabby, I told her she needed to lie down and listen to a story.  As expected, she balked a little.  But half an hour was all it took.  She was hooked.

That night when she went to bed, she asked to listen to another story.

And since then, she has listened to the entire 24-cassette collection many times over.  She will turn them on when she wakes up and crawl back into bed to listen for a while.  After breakfast, she often heads up to her room to listen to some more stories while she plays with Legos, looks at books, colors, or plays with tractors.  Sometimes that lasts until lunch.

She nearly always listens to them for another hour or more at night before she goes to sleep.

Hours and hours each day.  (I would guess 3-5 hours a day, most days.)

Randomly she will come up to me with new facts.  "I know the names of the three men in the fiery furnace."  "I know who the two spies were."  "I know what John the Baptist ate."

And then just yesterday, she announced to me that she had made up a song about John the Baptist.  Made. Up.  (Gotta admit, the tune wasn't all that snappy; but the lyrics amazed me.)

This is how it went:

John the Baptist, John the Baptist,
John baptized people.
John baptized people.
He looked at the road.
He looked at the road, and he saw Jesus.
He saw Jesus.
Jesus said, “Baptize me in the Jordan River.”
John said, “But you are the one who’s supposed to baptize me.”
But Jesus said, “Let it be this way for now.”
After John baptized Jesus, out came a dove from heaven
Out came the voice of God.
God said, “This is my beloved son, I am pleased of him.  Obey him, whatever he says.”

She is absorbing the stories of the Bible in a way that I wouldn't have imagined.

If this has you intrigued, you don't have to rely on finding an old set of cassettes.  I discovered that the stories can still be purchased by going to the Dan and Louie Store.  You can also listen to short samples of the stories.  I highly recommend these for preschool and young elementary-age students.

And yes, I realize she will likely turn out to be a story-loving nerd.  Just like her mama.