How to Get Kids to Read - Part 3

So how do you find a book that your child will enjoy? Start with his interests. Does he like sports? Find a novel in which the sport he enjoys is important to the plot. Matt Christopherwrites novels about kids and all kinds of sports for girls and boys. Does she want to be a princess when she grows up? There are all kinds of princess novels out there. I know because my daughter read them all when she was younger. Try The Jewel Princesses series by Jahnna N. Malcolm and Neal McPheeters. Does your child like gross humor? Try Dear Dumb Diary #1: Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jim Benton or Adventures Of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. Do you have a young historian? Try the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca. A budding scientist? Try Animorphs by K. A. Applegate or the Magic School Bus series by Joanna Cole. An animal lover? Animal Ark Pets Series is popular with younger kids. Hank the Cowdog books by John Erickson combine animals and a mystery. The whole family will love reading them. Bill Wallace writes some wonderful animal books. Try Snot Stew to start. Kids love the title! What movies or TV shows does you child enjoy? Is there a comic book or series of books published in conjunction with the show, such as Cheetah Girls , Lizzie Mcguire, or Spider-Man?

Still stumped? School librarians can make great suggestions. Independent bookstores may also have someone on staff who can recommend a good book for your child. I've found a local used bookseller who can give me recommendations. Or you can ask me. If I can't come up with something, I'll bet I know someone who can.

Now, get thee to a library or your favorite bookstore.

How to Get Kids to Read - Part 2

Another way to get kids to read is to let them see you reading. I still remember watching my parents read. My dad sometimes read over my mom’s shoulder. We adopted my daughter from China when she was seven years old. She didn’t speak English, didn’t read or write Chinese or English. But from the time she met us, she watched us read newspapers, books, magazines, even cereal boxes. Young children want to be like their parents. They want to do what their parents do. Take advantage of that while they’re young. Let them see you read, so they will realize how important it is to you.

Does my daughter like to read? You bet! Give her a Goosebumps Series book or a Dear Dumb Diary book, and I have to force her to put it down and go to sleep at night. She loves comic books, and I encourage her to read them as well as the funnies in the paper. She’s reading, and that’s what’s important! I do the same with her assigned reading that I did with my son. I read with her to get started. I always finish the assigned reading, but she usually finishes before I do. Right now, she’s reading Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi. We started together, but she got tired of waiting for me to read with her, so she’s way ahead of me. But I’m going to finish it. It’s a great story.

Do I let my children read anything? No. It has to be age appropriate. Even so, it might not be right for them. In first grade, my son was determined to read a Goosebumps book. I finally broke down and let him read it, knowing it would be too scary for him. Sure enough, he read only one chapter before he got so scared he couldn’t read anymore. He hasn’t read a horror novel since then.

Tomorrow, suggestions on how to find a book your child will enjoy.

How to Get Kids to Read--Part 1

What’s the best way to teach a kid (not the baby goat, but the human child) to enjoy reading? Why is it important for a child to enjoy reading? Is it ever too late to get a kid hooked on reading?

Too late? My husband was 25 when he and I married. He hated reading. It only took me two months to get him hooked. It’s never too late.

Why is it important? If a child enjoys reading, he’ll read more. If he reads more, he expands his vocabulary and his knowledge base. In short, he expands his world. Want a more concrete reason? Children who enjoy reading get better grades.

“But how do I get him to enjoy reading? He hates his school textbooks!”

Heck, can you blame him? I hate textbooks, too. In fact, I hated history in school because we learned about it through textbooks. It wasn’t until my last year of college, when I discovered that you could learn about history from sources other than textbooks, that I learned to love it. Textbooks should be outlawed! What an awful way to teach a child to read. What an awful way to teach a child anything! My children didn’t like reading textbooks. They still don’t. Fortunately, that wasn’t their first experience with reading. I read to them from the time they were born. When they were infants, I chose books with bright, interesting pictures. As toddlers and preschoolers, I added stories that were interesting and easy for them to follow, like Where's My Teddy? and Miss Spider's Tea Party . As they got older and developed their own interests, I chose books that I thought they would enjoy. I didn’t care if it was an award-winning book. In fact, most of the Caldecott books I’ve seen haven’t done a thing for me. The Newberry books usually have a pretty good story, but they often take a while for my child to “get in to.” For instance, my son read Johnny Tremain , a Newberry winner, in 5th grade. I’d remembered reading this book when I was in 5th grade. I loved it then and was excited that I could share this with my son. But Johnny Tremain is slow to start, and my son was having trouble getting in to it. So, I sat down with him, and we took turns reading the first few chapters out loud—no more than one chapter a day. After a few chapters, he didn’t want to quit reading, so he took the book to his room and continued on his own. We did this with many of the assigned books for his elementary and middle school English classes. He’s a senior in high school now, and while we don’t read aloud to each other, I will sometimes read one of his assigned novels, so I can discuss it with him.

Books he selected on his own or books I selected for him have often kept him up all night. Science fiction, action adventure, mysteries. Animorphs, a series of science fiction novels for young adults, isn’t the most literary of works out there. But my son loved that series, and it got him to read. He consumed them in one sitting.

That’s all for today. More tips tomorrow.

What I’m Reading Now

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me if I read more than one book at a time. My answer was a definite “Yes!” I typically have at least two books going. More often, I’m reading around five—a book for every mood, you might say. Currently, I’ve got Peter Lovesey’s Bertie and the Seven Bodies (Prince of Wales Mysteries)in the car. This book keeps me entertained while I’m waiting for kids and appointments and while exercising. On my bed stand, I’ve got The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle and The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang. Tolle is helping me find my way back to me after the death of my oldest daughter almost eight years ago. Chang’s book fills my love of history. With my youngest daughter, I’m reading Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi. And my guilty pleasure book is Kathleen Eagle’s The Night Remembers. It replaced Beauty Like the Night by Liz Carlisle, which I gave up on. Usually, I really enjoy Liz Carlisle’s books, but this one just wasn’t holding my attention—too much character introspection.

There was a time when I couldn’t understand how people read more than one book at a time. It’s something I’ve worked into over many years. I may eventually work myself out of it again, but for now multiple books works for me.

Finding the Right Book

I have always loved books. Remember the order forms for books that teachers sent home with us in elementary school? I always ordered a stack of books from those forms. The other kids looked at me as if I was a freak. I didn't let that stop me. Fortunately, my parents never limited my purchases! I still remember my dad reading to us at bedtime.

Once a week during summer vacation, my mom took us to the library. Again, I came home with a stack of books and read them all by the next week's return trip. In high school and college, I didn't have time to read for pleasure during the school year, but you can bet I read during every Christmas, Easter and summer break.

When I married my husband, I couldn't understand why he didn't love books. The idea was so foreign to me that I wouldn't accept it. For his birthday, two months after our wedding, I bought him one gift—a book, 2010: Odyssey Two. It was the book sequel to his all-time favorite movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. He took it with him the next day when he flew to D.C. on a business trip. He missed his return flight home because he stayed up all night reading. That's what I'm talkin' about! He is now an avid reader. It's all about finding the right book.

That’s what this blog is about—finding the right book. I’m not going to waste my time reviewing books I don’t like because I won’t finish them. I may mention one in passing. If you don’t agree, that’s fine. Different strokes . . . . You will probably want to find another book review blog or read the ones I don’t like.