Last week, I was thrilled to hear from an old friend. She is a friend that I feel like I talk to every week. She writes a wonderful blog and through it, I keep up with her and her family’s daily adventures. In reality though, she and I haven’t talked in months so when I heard her southern accent coming through loudly on my voice mail, I quickly called her back. Our conversation was great as always although this time it was filled with frustration. Sara has a very bright son and while we all wish for our children to be ‘geniuses’, as in all things in life there are pros and cons.

Among other topics, we discussed finding appropriate literature for Liam to read. He can read anything you put in his hands but as a kindergarten finding appropriate subject material at his reading level is a true challenge. Liam pours over non fiction books filled with bite sized facts but he also enjoys fiction. Now that I am reading nonfiction myself (finally!), one of the first things I thought of were nonfiction books that read like narratives.

My current favorite in this category is Redwoods by Jason Chin.

This creative book combines fact and fantasy to teach it’s readers about the giant redwood trees. Throughout the tale, we see a young boy reading a book (with the same pictures as ours) he found on the subway about the redwoods. As he reads, creatures and people from the times he reads about populate the pages around him. The little boy exits the subway and instead of his familiar destination, he walks into the redwood forest. Throughout his adventures the reader learns fact after fact about the redwoods while the boy escapes, fire and rain, meets animals in the forest and even climbs the giant 200 foot trees.

Redwoods is the perfect combination of fact and fiction making it an ideal choice for any reader in you life.

And a favor… I would love any other book recommendations you might have for Liam. He is a kindergartener who can read anything you hand him with nearly perfect comprehension. He loves sports and his family and friends so those topics would be especially appreciated.  And of course, age appropriate content is a must. I will post my final list here to share.