David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
If I could go back in time and relive just one day in our homeschool, I would choose a day when our family was in the family room to hear Ray read aloud from Charles Dickens. John would be sitting on the floor creating with Lego®. Bethany, Mary Evelyn, and I would be working away at embroidery. I might be stitching on a square from the wool crazy quilt I worked on way back then.
Lately I’ve been listening to David Copperfield by Dickens. It is certainly not the same as listening to Ray read it aloud with our children gathered around, but it brings back very sweet memories.
If you are looking for something to read to your children this summer, I recommend it. Dickens teaches crucial lessons about human strengths and frailties. Let me whet your appetite with quotes that give insight into some of its character lessons.
Mr. Micawber is a husband and father who goes from one pecuniary difficulty to another. He fails to follow it himself, but gives the following wise advice to David Copperfield:
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Dr. Strong is a kind, elderly scholar who is married to the beautiful young Annie, who grew up learning from him. When people accuse Annie of being in love with someone else, she assures her husband with these words:
When I was very young, . . . quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher—the friend of my dead father—who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.’
. . . As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to him, I can hardly describe how—as a father, as a guide, as one whose praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world.
Betsy Trotwood is David Copperfield’s aunt. When she loses her fortune, she tells her nephew:
We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out.
Good literature should introduce our children to characters they can emulate, while warning them about situations to avoid. Reading aloud gives parents and children opportunities to talk about issues that will be important to them all their lives.
Finally, brethren, whatever is true,
whatever is honorable, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence
and if anything worthy of praise,
dwell on these things.Â
The things you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me, practice these things,
and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9