Tonight, I handed Caroline a book and said, “I think you’ll like this series.”

She looked confused and said, “I thought you wanted me to stop reading series books.”

I understand her confusion. The whole thing confuses me too.

Right now Caroline is only reading series books and often only re-reading series books. I like a good series book but I sure would like her to venture into some new material.

She is definitely stuck. But she is stuck and reading at the same time.

So is she really stuck? For now, I’ve decided she is not.

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Professionally, I am asked over and over again when a child will read. We have become such a competitive society that even non-competitive people seem to put due dates on everything. Including when our children will read.

Will she read soon? Isn’t it late? She should be reading by now, right?

I often tell the story of my own two girls. My oldest didn’t read much at all until she read everything at the age of six. My youngest began sounding out simple words at the age of four but has taken much more gradual steps toward fluent reader than her older sister did. Sometimes, I’m pretty sure people think I’m making this story up to make them feel better.

Therefore I was thrilled when I read my dear friend Sara’s post titled, The Reader. Turns out her children’s reading story is pretty similar to mine.

Make sure to click through for a fun read and even an adorable video of sweet Susanna reading…

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about many great literacy activities to be found on the iPad. I closed the post saying that I was sure my favorite apps would quickly change and indeed they have. When a good friend asked recently what book apps I would recommend, I became overwhelmed by the choices and it’s taken me days to decide how to answer her.

My current favorites are not necessarily the apps that can stand in for read aloud time when you are desperate like Tales 2 Go or Tumble Books To Go.

Rather they are apps based on the work of three great ‘real world’ authors.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App! by Mo Willems is just as genius as his books. In this app, you can create your own story making not only visual choices but by recording your own voice to be heard during the telling. You can listen to favorite stories and learn how to draw the pigeon. Both Caroline and Katherine interact with app until I tell them to stop. Which is usually right around the time that they start including goofy (and sometimes potty related!) phrases into the the ‘create own story’ section…

Long time readers of this blog may remember that the girls and I were lucky enough to meet Tad Hills last year. His books are great and so is the new app based on How Rocket Learned to Read. The app allows you to read the story to yourself, hear the story read to you or play alphabet and sight word game

Another new app for us is Wild About Books one of Random House Children’s Books apps. The app is new but not the great book by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown. With this app, we can read to ourselves or listen to the story narrated. As with many apps, we can watch the pictures come to life, always fun especially with the illustrations of Marc Brown.

More new favorites to come, I’m sure…

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When we were at the Met last weekend, the conversation inevitably turned to the classic book of our childhood’s, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

The fifth grade at our school goes to the Met twice a year with our art teacher. As we discussed The Mixed Up Files, she told us that, the classes used to read the book before going on their trips but that sadly, they no longer have time. All the time, now being devoted to things like test preparation.

Reading the book earlier this week, I couldn’t help but feel the irony of the comments above as I read the passage below…

“No,” I answered, “I don’t agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take the time out to let that happen, than you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.”

                                   -E.L. Konigsburg

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Dad with Caroline (2003)

Dad with Katherine (2006)

It was five years ago today that Dad died.

Given a six month prognosis,  he lived for years, to walk me down the aisle and to hold his two grandbabies. And then he was gone.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Dad as we approach this anniversary. Recently, I re-read an essay that I wrote shortly after he died. In it, I explored how similar Dad’s death was to Katherine’s birth. How I had to let go during labor, to let our baby come and how Dad had to let go during death, to stop all the pain.

In it I wrote,

As I approached the hospice, it started to snow. Snow is Lubbock is rare. Dad had always hated the weather in Lubbock; too much humidity and too little snow. As the flakes covered the windshield, I knew that Dad had died. Minutes later, I rushed into his room. Where there had been struggle before I left, there was only calm. Dad lay still on the bed. No movement, no fight, no breath. He had let go. He had let nature work. Dad had left the world. His calm eyes closed, his mouth stopped, his strong fingers at rest.

Days later, I returned home to Richmond, to Rob and my little girls. I cleaned, sorted and organized. I jumped back in to my life. While completing the chores of everyday, I began the challenge of explaining death to Caroline. I also thought constantly of how Katherine would never remember my dad. How she would know him only through pictures and stories. This little girl who entered the world to the same words that her grandfather left it would never know this man. In my mind, though, Katherine and Dad would always share something important. They together had taught me the struggle, the importance and the inevitability of letting go.

Good bye again Dad. I love you.

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I really do love book lists.

So I decided that this year, I will be better about keeping one of my own. I tend to avoid resolutions because I feel bad when I break them. Therefore, this is an idea, not a resolution. So, if a February book list doesn’t end up anywhere on this blog, all will still be right with the world.

The month began with The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison. This book had been on my To Be Read list for so long that simply reading it would have felt like an accomplishment. More than that though, it has given me things to think about the whole month long.

My mother loaded Joan Didion’s Blue Nights on to the Kindle that she gave me for Christmas so this title was next in line. I was both excited and fearful to read this book. I read Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking right as my dad was dying so I was a bit nervous about reading another of her books about death. Upon reading it though, I realized that it was much more a book about life. As I suppose all books truly are.

The Anti-Romantic Child tells the tale of a mother coming to terms with marriage, motherhood and the world of raising a child with autism. Thought-provoking and funny at the same time, this was a good read. That said, I tend to have issues if I read too many memoirs in a row. It was time to move on to fiction.

Reading Divisadero was rewarding while challenging. The author is a poet and his prose reads as such. Beautifully haunting, I had to take breaks from reading at times, the language so much richer than what I typically read.

Perhaps this is why the month ended with middle grade fiction. That and because we traveled in to the world of the Metropolitan Museum of Art this weekend.

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was just as wonderful as I had remembered it as a child. My friend Nicky read it again this week too and commented that she could actually remember specific lines of the story from reading it in childhood. Now that is a well written book. More to come on this fantastic title….

And here’s to equally happy February reading…

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Have books, will travel…

On the way to school yesterday morning, Katherine, her friend Owen and I were stuck in a terrible traffic jam. The kids were doing fine until I said something silly along the lines of, “We have been in this car so long, I feel like we are on a trip!”

That was when Katherine began to say she was bored.

So I told her to pull out her books that she brings home from school and read to Owen. So she did.

She read all five books. She read them front to back. Then backwards. And then she read each page backwards.

The traffic was so bad that I worried she would have to start reading each word backwards. Fortunately, the traffic broke up  before we got to that point.

Although that might have been interesting. Or perhaps I should say, gnitseretni.

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Last year, my friend Nicky and I did not make any friends as we crowded around one particular auction item at our elementary school’s silent auction. The girl’s art teacher had offered a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her as a personal tour guide to the top six bidders. As soon as someone would raise the price, we were right there to top it. I can imagine that people might have used some choice words to describe us that night. But I wouldn’t do it any differently.

Thanks to our persistence, our families spent this Saturday at the Met with the girl’s  most fabulous art teacher at our side. She and her husband and their two small children (yes- that is her 7 month baby girl in the Bjorn pictured above!) led us expertly around the enormous museum. We darted from gallery to gallery, never getting lost and hearing fascinating tidbits about many glorious pieces of art.

And now, I’m sure you can guess which children’s book I’ll be talking about in an upcoming post. I’m off to read it to the girls right now…

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Katherine is a very sweet, kind and cooperative little girl.

Until she isn’t.

Yesterday morning, I told her no less than one thousand times to get dressed. The clock was ticking and it was nearly time to walk out the door.

“Katherine, you are driving me wild!”, I heard myself say in a voice louder than I meant to use.

And then in my mind, I pictured the wonderfully firey little girl and her mother (who doesn’t like to yell) in Mem Fox’s Harriet Harris, You’ll Drive me Wild.

My mom guilt faded away and I knew that I would be able to say I was sorry for rushing, for yelling, for being the mom who didn’t like to yell but still did sometimes.

 I knew I could say I was sorry but that even better, I knew I could read  Harriet Harris, You’ll Drive me Wild! and all would be ok.

You’ve got to love a book like that…

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Last week I received a  comment here from a blogger who had found me by way of one of my favorite blogs, Read Aloud Dad. After reading Marjorie’s comment, I went to check out her blog,  Paper Tigers.

And what a great day it was to visit. Marjorie and her fellow bloggers were announcing their annual Reading the World Challenge.  As they write,

Do you enjoy reading books from and about different cultures?  Would you like to have an incentive to read more culturally diverse books?  Either way, the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge is the one for you!

Always feeling like I could ‘spread my reading wings’ a bit further, I was excited to join the challenge.

So here is what I agreed to do over the next year:

1. Read a total of seven books.

2. Choose six books from/about/by or illustrated by someone from different countries anywhere in the world, three of which must be in different continents, and at least one of which must be translated from another language.

3. Choose one book from/about your city/district – as local and as relevant to your geographical setting as you can find.

4. You should choose at least one book of each of the following categories: fiction, poetry and non-fiction.

5. Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class. Read them in books, on an e-reader, or listen to audio-books. Combine your choices with other reading challenges.

6. There is no time limit for the reading the World Challenge, apart from completing it by the end of the year.

Be on the look out for my reviews and feel free to jump over the Paper Tigers and join me. I’d love the company…

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