5 Minutes for Books wants to know what books kiddo and I are reading now, and since I haven't posted any Mom & Son Book Club reviews in a while I figured this would be a good substitute.
- We just finished A Giant Problem, book 2 in the series Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles. Kiddo enjoyed it, as he did the entire Spiderwick series so far. From a mom's point of view, this book has the same flaws as the others in the series (which I wrote more about here). As always, I made sure that kiddo understands that just because the characters in a book do or say something, that doesn't mean HE should as well. And as long as I know he understands that, I'm content to keep reading these books. Unfortunately, book 3 isn't out yet.
- Kiddo's school had their book fair earlier this month. There was only one book there that he
wanted to buy: Star Wars the Clone Wars: The New Padawan. Have I mentioned before that kiddo is completely addicted to Star Wars? This has been going on since he was 3 years old and it shows no signs of abating. Thank goodness that I was (am!) a Star Wars fan or else this would have driven me completely nuts by now. Anyway, he brought his money to the book fair specifically to buy this book. Somehow he found out that it would be there - it must have come up in class. When we got to the book fair he asked the mom running the fair where he could find it and she didn't know. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find it either. I was trying to convince him that he should buy something else when we finally found it. Needless to say, he was thrilled. We've only read the first (short) chapter so far but I'm sure this will be one that we reread often.
- The last book that we are currently reading is The Ark, The Reed, and The Fire Cloud. It's the story of Noah's ark told from the point of view of the animals and it's great! Kiddo loves it so far. It's over 400 pages and we are only about 150 pages in. The main character is a Scottie dog named Max. Kiddo loves my impression of a Scottish accent. It is definitely challenging to read a book while doing different accents, that's for sure! Max is Scottish, Al is Irish, Liz is French, and I butcher ALL accents equally. But kiddo is enjoying it and that's all that matters. This book will be coming with us on our Thanksgiving vacation for sure!
As a side note, hubby and I had our conference with kiddo's teacher yesterday (for those who don't read my blog regularly, he's in 1st grade). He's doing well, and is one of the strongest readers in the class. But kiddo is not happy with that - he thinks he's doing poorly. He finds reading to be very challenging and is more apt to give up than to work at it. According to his teacher that is common in his class and perseverance is something they work on as a class. Kiddo wants to be able to read NOW and EASILY. At the beginning of the year he asked his teacher if he would be able to read Harry Potter by the end of 1st grade. She said that he'd be close. Unfortunately she didn't tell him that it would be a lot of work. It just breaks my heart to hear him say that he doesn't like reading and to see him struggle with it. I KNOW that he loves books, he's just impatient with himself. Hubby and I are working hard to make sure that he doesn't give up, and that he does develop good reading habits and a love of reading. Wish us luck!
So those are my Kid(d0) Picks for November ... what are YOU reading with your kids, nephew, nieces, neighbors?
7 comments:
It sounds like your son has the same taste in books as my second grader. I hope that his frustration eases with reading.
My son had a similar problem early on because he was good at reading easy words, and so he expected all of the words to be that easy. When he found that he had to work hard (which he hadn't experienced before) he got frustrated. He's moved past it now and is an excellent reader.
I'm glad you mentioned the Beyond the Spiderwick chronicles books, because my son loved the Spiderwick books and I forgot that there were more of them. He'll be so excited when I tell him.
Right now I'm reading Number the Stars with my 6th graders, Walk Two Moons with my 7th graders, and shorts stories like The Necklace, The Monkey's Paw, and the Mask of Red Death with my 8th graders. I also just got several kids to read The Wednesday Wars and The Invention of Hugo Cabret - both are excecllent for very different reasons!
With modeling like yours, kiddo can't help but love books and reading...he's just at the hard part right now!
The Ark, The Reed and the Fire Cloud was an awesome book! I reviewed it here and don't worry, it's a spoiler free review.
I don't have children of my own and doubt I will ever have, but one of the things I enjoy most (and initially somewhat to my own surprise) in reading bookblogs are the posts that "mother-readers" write about reading with their children. Your posts on that topic are among my favorites. I so enjoy reading about you and Kiddo reading and exploring books together, Heather, especially because you include both your opinions on the books you read.
You might be doing this already -- try turning on the close-captioning when you and Kiddo are watching TV. This got my son over the hump.
It's obvious that kiddo is very smart and that's where the impatience comes from. Wanting to be able to read Harry Potter in first grade is quite ambitious!
His desire just needs to catch up with his maturity level, that's all!
Wow, he's reading words already! My daughter is in Grade 1, and while she loves books, she is slow to read - ie, she can't read any words yet. I think just reading books with them, and having them see you read, is the best way to get them to read. And patience!!
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