Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Reading Books

Reading aloud, reading to self, reading on a Kindle, reading from a page, listening in the car... so much reading took place over the Summer.

Kiddo One has always been a good reader, but didn't really start to enjoy chapter books until the discovery of the Redwall series in 2nd grade.

Kiddo Two was later to bloom as a reader, and just this Summer has begun to stick with a chapter book once picking it up. Before, she bounced around from book to book, reading a chapter here and there. Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder, with some attempts at Harry Potter (during the long months when we were listening to the series as audiobooks in the car) but mostly she indulged in plenty of picture books.

He's currently reading through the Artemis Fowl series, while dabbling in Garfield, TinTin, and other graphic novels. I've just put the book Dream Thief (Lawhead) into his hands while we wait for the next in his series to come in to the library, hoping a little foray into sci-fi might grab his interest.

She is fully involved in the Little House on the Prairie series, finally working her way through the same set that I collected as a grade schooler. I love the conversations we have, chatting about the characters and events with shared interest. Oh, how I love those tales.

Together, we finished listening to the Harry Potter series (Rowling), then moved straight into The Hobbit (Tolkien). We had a brief break while waiting for The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien), to come in (we are now more than halfway through; yay for my kids finally understanding why I have to keep biting my tongue every time we watch the movies!), so we listened to most of The Jungle Book (Kipling). Those hours spent in the car while running errands are so fun now that we've branched out into audiobooks. The kids are always clamoring for more drives into town, more errands (what!?), because it will mean more listening to great narrators telling even greater stories.

As for read-alouds, we finished last Summer's final book, then made it through a few more that were new to me as well as to the kids.

Pigs Might Fly (King-Smith)
The One and Only Ivan (Applegate)
Freak the Mighty (Philbrick)

We are now about halfway through Alice in Wonderland (Carroll).

And now, for some random reading-related photos. Even if it isn't obvious right away, each and every one of the photos does indeed contain either a book or a reading kid.

3 comments:

Robin in Virginia said...

Beth, I loved the pictures of the kids reading. I am glad they are becoming life-long readers.

LaDonna said...

My 4th grade teacher read The Hobbitt to us everyday during class. I understand completely the enthusiasm for more in town errands.

Jan said...

I absolutely love seeing this. Children reading BOOKS ! ! ! I am so afraid that BOOKS will become obsolete and children have no idea how wonderful it is to hold a book, smell the age of an older book and feel the paper under their hands and in their fingers. Truly this is a wonderful thing to see. Thank you for showing your children the joy of reading from a book.