I love it when a book that get tons of hype really deserves the hype it has gotten.

Oh, No!  by Candace Fleming, is just such  book. I have been hearing lots about it and have to admit the rather drab colors on the cover didn’t give me much hope. And yes, I do know all about the book cover expression and yes, I do get frustrated with my children when they do the same thing I just admitted to doing.

Well, the story is every bit as lively as it’s cover isn’t.

It’s a rhyming read aloud that will beg for re-reading.

And it’s a Read Together book.

And it is perfect for making predictions.

And for learning about little known animals.

And it reminded me that Candace Fleming wrote an old favorite of ours, Clever Jack Takes the Cake so now I get to go and read that one too which makes me smile…

Read more

Yes. You are seeing correctly. There is a picture of a My Little Pony I Can Read book on my blog.

Now. I am still in my right mind. I do still dislike My Little Pony (just cause) and I Can Read books (for their faulty leveling) but this book led to a reading breakthrough in our house this weekend.

During a big storm on Saturday, Rob, Caroline and I were reading in the living room. Usually when this happens, Katherine will ask one of us to read to her. This time, though, she went and got her My Little Pony book. This book is one in which pictures are used in place of certain words, there are many words, including all the character names that are not actually easy to read and the pictures offer little to no support. Needless to say, I do not like this book.

But Katherine was determined to read with the family. She did ask me to help her with a number of words but she sat and she read and she felt like she was doing what we were doing. And she was awfully happy.

I was beginning to forgive this book for it’s awfulness already and then Sunday morning happened.

Katherine woke up a bit early. Caroline was still asleep and Rob was out for a run. I asked Katherine if she wanted to snuggle for a little bit but she said no. She came back in to our room a minute later with My Little Pony tucked under her arm. And she sat quietly for quite a few minutes, reading silently to herself. I’m not sure she totally understood what she was reading. I’m quite sure she mispronounced a few words. But she did what Caroline does when she wakes up early. She read all by herself.

So it turns out a book that features a commercial character and is incorrectly leveled may be to thank for a huge reading breakthrough in our house. I’m not quite ready to say “Thank you, My Little Pony”. Not yet. For now I’ll just give her a little nod of appreciation.

 

Read more

A first grader and a fourth grader walked out of our door this morning and we took the same picture we take every year. I kept looking at the picture and re-taking it. Something just didn’t seem right about it. The angle, the zoom, the lighting. I finally realized it wasn’t my camera. The girls are changing as if before our eyes. Suddenly so big, so grown up that the pictures seem out of focus to me.

Another day, another year.

And off they go…

Read more

At the beginning of the summer, we began training our puppy in earnest. I told our wonderful trainer that by the time the girls went back to school, I wanted a dog that was a joy to have in our family.

We are making great progress but it appears that we aren’t quite there yet.

Unless, perhaps she helped herself that glass of water. Maybe I can get her to make dinner next. Now that would be a joy.

Read more

Yesterday, I ranted a bit about required reading and how my girls, as readers, take issue with it. They read all the time and are annoyed when they have to record their minutes read or list the titles of the books they enjoyed. They just want to enjoy their books. They want to do the things that grown ups do when they read. And when grown ups read, they often talk about and share books with their friends. This is true, authentic, meaningful reading.

I was reminded of this the other day when Caroline came downstairs after reading a biography of the Olympic soccer player, Hope Solo. And yes, frequent readers of the blog, feel free to do the happy dance with me. Yes, she read a biography. A whole new genre but that is a post for another day.

Caroline said, “Do you think T (a girl from Caroline’s soccer team) would like to read the Hope Solo book? It was good. I think she would like it.”

And that, right there, is what reading is all about. I do hope Caroline shares the book and that she and T can talk about it. Maybe the book will be passed around the whole team. Like books are passed around in offices and among book clubs and at the car pool line. Because sharing and talking, not logging and responding, are what the reading experience is all about.

 

Read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about required reading these days. Perhaps, because I have been chasing my girls around the house with these paper fish, saying “When are you doing to do you fish!?”

The fish came home on the last day of school with a letter from our principal that read in part;

“Each spring I revisit the idea of requiring reading for students and I remain committed to the idea that fostering a love of pleasure reading is crucial. Summertime is a chance for kids to be a bit more unfettered and, while I hope that time includes reading; it will not be a mandate from Somerville.

However, I am encouraging every child to read each and every day this summer. I plan to do the same and visit the library each week with my children. Attached to this letter are 2 fish templates. I ask that each child returns to school with one or both of his/her fist template filled in with the name and title of a book they enjoyed this summer. We will celebrate our reading success on the main board in the front of the school. My goal is to have one fish for every Somerville student in Grades 1-5.”

Now I must say that I love our principal. I mean, I seriously love her. She is smart and caring and truly committed to the education and the happiness of each student that walks through the doors of her school.

I will say, though, that I wasn’t feeling the love as I chased the girls around with these darn fish. Last summer, as I wrote about in this post, this same wonderful principal required no reading at all. I wonder what changed. And when I was running around the house with fish templates, I was really wondering.

You see, my girls read voraciously this summer. Caroline continued her pattern of reading at least a book a day. Katherine and I read together every day, always a chapter book read aloud and often an easy reader to give Katherine the chance to develop her own independent reading skills. So, the fish felt, to me at least, a bit unnecessary. And that would be the word I would use when I was in a good mood about them.

I come back again and again to this concept of required reading and reading logs and reading responses. Kids who love reading, will read without these trappings. And completing these things will only make kids who don’t like to read all the more annoyed by the process.

As has happened so often this summer as Katherine and I make our way through the Ramona series, Ramona captured my thoughts exactly in a passage we read last night.

Beverly Cleary writes,

When time came for everyone to Drop Everything and Read, she sat quietly doing her Sustained Silent Reading.

How peaceful it was to be left alone in school. She could read without trying to hide her book under her desk or behind a bigger book. She was not expected to write lists of words she did not know, so she could figure them out by skipping and guessing. Mrs. Whaley did not expect the class to write summaries of what they read either, so she did not have to choose easy books to make sure she would get her summary right. Now if Mrs. Whaley would leave her alone to draw, too, school would be almost perfect.

It’s good to know that Mrs. Quimby might have hard time getting her little readers to fill out there fish too…

 

Read more

May these final days of summer, bring you great indulgences…

Read more

I feel like we are starting school later than the rest of the world.

The girls do not start school until next Thursday and that will be for half a day. Part of me feels like summer is dragging and dragging and dragging.

And then part of me, the part that reigns over spontaneous rice crispy treat sales with friends, feels like summer should go on and on and on.

As Gretchen Rubin, author of the Happiness Project wrote, “The days are long. The years are short.”

 

Read more

Sometimes, you just need a new voice in your life.

For months or maybe years at this point, I have been trying to find new books for Caroline to read. She has become an enormous fan of one genre and one genre only. Realistic fiction. About tween girls. Only series books need apply.

I have brought her every book that fits this description and she has read and then re-read most of them. Some books she dismisses very quickly, though, even if they fit her very narrow requirements.

I have enlisted teachers, librarians and friends to recommend new books and new series with only limited success.

The Cupcake Diaries have been rejected for no good reason a number of times.

Enter, the power of a new voice.

Last week, the girls spent two days with my mother and father in law while Rob and I enjoyed time at the beach. While we were gone, my mother in law took the girls to her local library complete with a different librarian and a new voice. Upon hearing Caroline’s reading preferences, she recommended The Cupcake Diaries. And lo and behold, Caroline can’t get enough of this new series.

As frequent blog readers know, I have always loved librarians but I now have a new one to add to my list of favorite people.

Read more

Every weekend, the first section that I read in the New York Times is the Book Review. No surprise here, I suppose.

Some weeks, though, are even better than others. Those, of course, are the weeks that include the children’s books reviews. Gosh. I guess this is not a post full of surprises.

But then, there are weeks, where it seems I pull out more pages to keep than I put in the recycling bin. This week was one such week.

Here’s a little peek at my pile of clippings…

“Three picture books encourage children to become constructors of their worlds”– Looks like two of my favorite books about reading, now have companion books about writing. I can’t wait to see Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates and Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills.

Bookshelf: First Day– Esme Raji Codell’s blog Planet Esme, was one of my first visits in to the land of children’s literature blogs. This fall, she has a fun new book called It’s Time for Preschool.

Ian Falconer of Olivia fame is the By the Book interview. While I found him to be a little quiet in some of his responses, it is still always fun to get inside an author’s head- even if only a tiny bit.

Liar and Spy– Rebecca Stead’s latest novel has finally been released. I loved When You Reach Me so I’m anxious to read this one. I’m also glad the book has finally been released. Stead has a heck of a marketing team on her side because I have been reading and reading and reading about this one.

App fun– I’m not sure I have seen apps reviewed in the Book Review before this issue? I may have missed them but I was glad they were there this week. I will certainly be checking out all of atlas-like apps reviewed. Each one looks both fun and informative.

And of course it’s hard to read the Book Review without paying a little bit of attention to the grown up books.

What I discovered when I did was that Molly Ringwald has written a novel. Do with that information what you may… Perhaps what you may do is exactly what I did. Return to the children’s section…

 

 

 

Read more