In our house, the Princess and I are crazy psyched for The LEGO Batman Movie that hits theaters this coming Friday. We were both fans of The LEGO Movie, which has been a fairly regular watch for the last few years. While my girl loves Wildstyle, she’s also got a laugh out of Will Arnet’s take on The Dark Knight.
“He’s funny,” said the Princess when I quizzed her about it this weekend.
To get us primed and pumped for the new movie, our pals at DK sent over a few related books, which would up perfect for us, as the Princess this year has been learning how to read (she’s 6, FYI).
The first book on our list was Team Batman, a Level One Reader made for kids in the beginning stages of reading. Honestly, my girl doesn’t love reading in front of people, but she was immediately into Team Batman, virtually reading the whole thing aloud. I asked her what she liked about this book in particular.
“It was telling you about all the characters,” said the Princess. “I didn’t know all the characters. It was cool reading it.”
“Was it easy to read it out loud?” I asked her.
“Yes,” was her reply. “Because it was a short book.”
Next on our list was Rise of the Rogues, a Level Two book that runs down the various villains that Batman will go up against in The LEGO Batman Movie. For this one, I did more of the reading, as the sentences were just a little bit longer and more involved. I think the Princess could read them, but with her there’s often a sense of intimidation when it’s time to step things up a bit. She’ll get there, she just needs to move at her own speed.
“It looked a little harder to me,” said the Princess.
“Who is your favourite Batman villain?” I asked her.
“Poison Ivy! She’s pretty, and I like her hairstyle.”
“Do you like having all the villains in one book?” I leadingly asked her.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” she exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm. “I get to meet all of them.”
For me, as a geek dad, being able to share this stuff with my kid is a genuine gift that I don’t take for granted. What if we didn’t like any of the same stuff? Life would certainly be boring.
Now, back to the Batcave for more reading adventures.
