If we are familiar with both stories, the one inevitably reminds us of the other. The Old Testament lection tells us about Samuel as a boy. The gospel passage tells us about Jesus as a boy. And the similarities between the two episodes are striking.
The Bible is not full of stories of individual children. Children are referenced as a group many times, but very few individual children work their way into the prominence of a story. Yet here we have one of two stories about Samuel as a child, as well as one lone story from Jesus’ childhood.
