The Goblin ?!?!?!?

The GoblinA goblin lives in our house, in our house, in our house,
A goblin lives in our house all the year round.
He bumps
And he jumps
And he thumps
And he stumps.
He knocks
And he rocks
And he rattles at the locks.
A goblin lives in our house, in our house, in our house,
A goblin lives in our house all the year round.

--Traditional French Rhyme

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This poem is so obscure that I doubt very many people recognize it.  But I love it, so here it is--and that's the point.

You see, I was the 5th child (of 6) in a working class family, growing up in the 1970s in north central Indiana.  Storytelling was a popular pastime among my siblings, as was singing traditional songs.

When schools purchased new textbooks, the old ones were given to students to take home at the end of the year.  Many of these were among the first books that I ever saw.  Among them were the steadfast "Dick, Jane, and Sally" books-- books that I actually heard read aloud until I could read them independently, which I did quite fluently and with great satisfaction by the age of 5.

There were also a couple of old music textbooks, MAKING MUSIC YOUR OWN.  There was a third grade edition that was orange.  I l-o-v-e-d it.  It contained such classics as "Oh, Susanna", "Polly Wolly Doodle", "Billy Boy", and my favorite song of all:  "Don Gato".  My siblings and I would often act out "Don Gato" as we sang it, opera style.  The same was true of "Skin and Bones".

Most of the songs in MAKING MUSIC YOUR OWN were traditional and already familiar.  Before obtaining a copy of the book, I knew many of them by heart, especially the first verses. When this book was discarded by the school and sent home, I quickly "made music my own" (as per the title) by claiming this book as mine!  No one seemed to mind.

As I mulled over the familiar lyrics, I discovered that almost all of the songs had multiple verses--some were new to me.  Looking back, I realize now that this promoted my reading, as I decoded the lyrics, I already had schema for the rhythms and rhymes, all that was left was to comprehend the meanings of each.  I decoded, repeated, sang, repeated, until all of the verses sounded right.  Then I practiced singing them often and received feedback from siblings who were willing to model and participate in singing them with me.  Talk about building fluency!

On just about any nice weather day, my sister, Lynda, and I were likely to grab that old orange book and sit side-by-side on the front porch and belt out tune after tune--singing every single verse with abandon.  When it was cold outside, this activity was moved to an upstairs bedroom (with the door closed so that my parents could have some peace).  On especially carefree days, the bedpost would become our microphone.  We'd take turns lying on the bed or performing into the bedpost.  I even recall singing into the banister at the bottom of the staircase so as to entertain the family when I was particularly smitten with the verses of a new song, such as "Frere Jacques".  Who needs "American Idol"?

Even grander was that at the age of 7, my mom made a purchase of a Magnus Chord Organ and a child-sized upright piano with a real maple cabinet.  The chord organ required only reading numbers that were assigned to notes while simultaneously changing chords.  This was slow going, and my brothers and sisters seldom allowed me to play in their presence, though they gleefully modeled for me--often.  And when they were busy with other things, I practiced.

Our only songbooks for the organ were Christmas carols, and the pleasure of learning new verses (and, occasionally, new songs) was alluring, even on hot summer days when Christmas was far away.  Again, I read and re-read the words, considered the rhythms, and this time tediously but joyfully banged out the tunes on the organ while singing as slowly and non-rhythmically as my playing ability demanded; this often required holding the deepest, lowest notes for 20-45 seconds until I could find the next key or chord.  But I did not care; it was glorious, especially when you didn't have to listen to it... I wonder if THAT'S why my mom was always reminding us to open the windows when playing the organ?

The next challenge was attempting to play the mini-piano.  It came with color-codes above the keys, and I suppose there must have been a color-coded book with simple tunes to tap out.

But I wanted to play the Christmas carols.  Soon, I figured out the correlation between the keys and the numbers and started to beat them out on my piano... then I realized that I could also figure out how to "play" the songs from my beloved music book.

I'm sure that it was by no small coincidence that the mini-piano was also moved out onto our country porch on hot summer days... sometimes even into the yard underneath a large maple tree.

Now that I had broken TWO codes:  the code for reading words AND the code for reading musical notes, there was no stopping me.  The tapping out of tunes (which must have sounded a lot like the broom's playing piano in Chris Van Allsburg's THE WIDOW'S BROOM) and singing along with gusto persisted for several more years until the piano was outgrown and records on the new stereo slowly replaced the old chord organ.

Another literary lifelong love developed in those same years:  the love of poetry.  The music book contained poems, which I often re-read and even tried to set to music on occasion.  My favorite was simply titled, "Hallowe'en":


Hallowe'en
by Harry Behn

Tonight is the night
When dead leaves fly
Like witches on switches
Across the sky,
When elf and sprite
Flit through the night
On a moony sheen.
Tonight is the night
When leaves make a sound
Like a gnome in his home
Under the ground,
When spooks and trolls
Creep out of holes
Mossy and green.
Tonight is the night
When pumpkins stare
Through sheaves and leaves
Everywhere,
When ghoul and ghost
And goblin host
Dance round their queen.
It's Hallowe'en!


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Prior to this exposure to poetry, I had known nursery rhymes and even owned a nursery rhyme book and coloring book.  But poetry like this opened an added dimension to the magical literary world that was rapidly unfolding in my childhood.  I took notice of its similarity to lyrics... and marveled.

In the meantime, I had started school.  As a first grader, we had a "resting period" that followed lunch and recess.  I had a mat, blue on one side, red on the other, that I unfolded on the floor with my classmates.  Sometimes, the teacher would read to us, sometimes there would be music, and other times there would be a story that was on a record.  At Christmas, we even took turns "napping" near the class's Christmas tree.  It was at the end of a 45 rpm recording of GEORGIE (by Robert Bright) that the publishing company had inserted some female voices eerily reading the poem, THE GOBLIN.

Once again, I was in l-o-v-e.  The chanting about the goblin that lived in "our house" was just a little bit scary but in an acceptably tingly kind of way.  I fell in love with the spine-chilling voices' rhythms and the spookiness of the image of this goblin that was wreaking havoc in someone's home... on dark, rainy days, I wondered if there was a goblin in MY house, but I didn't dwell too long on these childish wanderings.

Then came another life-changing day.  

I was in the drugstore with my dad, and he gave me a quarter.  (Back then, that would buy you a few things.)  I took a walk down the toy aisle and realized that I could buy most any "Elf" or "Golden" book for 25 cents.  I chose a lovely, pink copy of  BUFFY AND THE NEW GIRL, a book about Buffy on the TV show, "Family Affair", which I had seen in syndication.  When I told by dad, who was also a reader, that I wanted to buy the book, he gave me the extra penny or two for sales tax; and, PRESTO, my personal bookshelf and extraordinary reading habit began.

Soon, I started doing chores for my older sisters, often earning more than enough to buy a new book each week.  I started planning my purchases, eventually saving a little more to make purchases from the school's book club orders.

The first one I ever bought from Scholastic was THE LITTLES HAVE A WEDDING... a beautiful, white chapter book about a little family that had dog-like tails.  Perfect.  I read and re-read it again and again.  It was cherished.

Another favorite pastime was cutting out paper people from old catalogs.  When the new Montgomery Ward, Sears, or Spiegel catalog arrived, my parents would donate the old one to the cause.  There were two per year:  one for spring/summer and one for fall/winter.  Best of all were the bonus Christmas catalogs.  These were treasured, descriptions of toys were read over and over, and our imaginations of Christmas morning far exceeded the reality of a few special toys and treats.  We didn't mind.  And when Christmas was over, that special catalog joined the ranks of those that were chopped into paper dolls for our playing pleasure.  One year, we even found a perfect Santa paper person (modeling a Santa suit that was for sale, of course).

We cut out people and sometimes even animals so that our paper dolls could have pets.  (I guess this was a predictor of my lifelong love of animals.)  We wrote the names of the people (and pets) on the backs of the dolls, in ink, naming them the most lovely names we could think of, such as Elizabeth, Debbie, Lorena, Josie, and Daphne.

We often categorized them into families and placed them in certain areas of a rug or bedspread to indicate the locations of their homes.  We played with those paper dolls, creating story lines with a lot of dialogue.  They were so precious that we stored our collections in separate shirt-sized boxes, being careful to never bend or tear them.  Now I know that this activity helped with storytelling, recalling story lines, characters' names, plots and settings--all excellent for building language and literary skills.  It was even handy for understanding family terms, such as aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, etc.

Looking back, it's easy to see how these experiences contributed so significantly to my literacy and, undoubtedly, to the fact that I grew up to be a teacher and literacy coach with a personal library of thousands of books.  And, like my paper dolls, I am very sociable.

Despite not having a lot of money or exposure to a lot of literature,  I was surrounded by activities that built my literacy--and, more importantly, my lifelong love of literacy.

I think sharing stories such as these about our own literacy acquisition can be powerful for our students to hear.  Simple though my story is, so many times I see my students' eyes blazing as they beg to hear more about my little girl self, playing with old textbooks, making meaning of them, and developing as a reader.

They yearn for these opportunities but sometimes just lack the imagination to realize that they are right there, hiding in places they might not suspect, just waiting to be discovered and made into great literacy memories of their own... as a dream keeper, it's up to me to encourage the children to keep looking and to point them in the right direction.