Over the past ten years, my daughter has read quite a few books. She started reading books like The Berenstain Bears series when she was two or three years old; it was a favorite activity to do with her grandma.
By age six she was really into the Magic Tree House series, devouring them as soon as she got them home. She also had some strange requests at age six, like the book Growing Up in Mississippi. Personally, I thought that was a fine book for her to read, except for the third part which talks about the main character’s high school years (and experiences that accompany that time of life).
Of course I was in mom heaven, having a child who was such an avid reader. Her interest in reading spilled over into school, and she participated in various reading programs, and won some medals; which she absolutely loved.
The majority of the books she has read since age six have either been on a required school list of readings, suggested readings, part of a competition (like Battle of the Books), or popular books approved by her peers and teenagers (e.g. The Hunger Games).
Two years ago we told her that she needed to read some classics as well.
We explained that there is at least one reason why certain books are internationally recognized, and how books like The Hunger Games are partially a product of these classics’ influence on the new authors. My assignment for her (as a part of homeschool) was to read Frederick Douglass, a child-friendly version of The Hunger Games.
Her father’s assignment immediately after Frederick Douglass was The Lord of the Flies. She lives with her dad on weekends, but there was no escaping this reading ‘thing’ her parents were making her do! Poor girl! No breaks on weekdays or weekends.
I really tried to get her to enjoy reading Frederick Douglass. She and I talked about American history and how this book was about overcoming enslavement, and that it was important for her to read this as an African-American girl. I told her she could read whatever she wanted when she was finished, or even read a book of her choice simultaneously with this one. Nothing worked. She went from reading a book a week, to taking six months to finish Frederick Douglass’ biography. Lord of the Flies took a year for her to finish, and she really did not enjoy reading it.
After these two parent ‘fails’, I really just wanted her to read. I wanted her to rekindle the passion she had for reading and so I let her read almost whatever she liked. Her choices are actually pretty good. Some books have deep moral meanings, and some just talk about fun stuff like fart powder for the bathtub.
We used to keep books organized by content, but now we have shelves that carry books about varying subjects. By doing this, we hope that while she’s looking for a book to read, her eye may be caught by East Africa’s History, or The Prophet, or The Human Body, or something else she wouldn’t typically think she’d like.
Do you have a set of boundaries on what your child/ren can read? If so, what do you base it on? Have you tried to introduce different books to your child/ren? If so, how were they received?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophia. You can find her blogging at Think Say Be and on twitter @ThinkSayBeSNJ.
Photo credit to the author.
ThinkSayBe
I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!
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Nice post!
My son Peter started reading on his own at five and began with the Harry Potter series. My husband is an educator and he was reading the series to do a project with his students on popular books. My husbands brother-who is an engineer with 3 older kids -told us off and was horrified that we would let Peter read such stuff!!! However, he is MUCH more mature than his age and after devouring Harry Potter went on to read every historical novel/text book he could find about Roman History.
He takes after us in our eclectic tastes!!!
We ALWAYS discuss what he’s reading and talk about what he’s learnt. His language teacher at school gives him 100% in text analysis-the only one in his year -and says his knowledge of vocabulary and syntax are way above his age. He’s now 14. His spelling needs some work though!
My younger son Matthew doesn’t enjoy reading books unless the are based on scientific subjects or rules and srategies of chess. He aces all the science subjects at school but has to try much harder in the language classes!!!
That’s really cool, Ann Marie! BBC has some nice documentaries, including Roman history, available as a part of a World History series, I think.
My daughter started Harry Potter in kindergarten too, but then switched to other ones.
Currently I’m reading They Were Here Before Columbus, and Impossible Physics to my toddler & infant. I’m experimenting with subconsciousness as I want to see if they will have an interest for these things when they are a bit older. lol.
Thank you for your comment. You have a very cool household!
I can totally relate to your post. Initially when my son took an interest to reading, we flooded him with the greatest classics imagining that he is going to be the next Bernard Shaw or Shakespeare. Things went down from there. So we just left him to what he wanted. After a year or so of “no books” he has now come back to read non-fiction (like science, evolution of the world, human body, and generally gets lost in any type of encyclopedia). He also reads fun books like The Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
I wished for him to read the English classics. Perhaps he is not that type. But nevertheless I understand he is an avid reader, with a different taste of his own. I understand that I do not have control over what he gets interested to read, so I let it go and let him read what he likes…
But I totally see how your mom-heart is going!
Your post definitely had me thinking! My oldest son is nine years old, and he reads a mix. He just finished the Harry Potter series and now is reading The Chronicles of Narnia. While he likes them, he is also fulfilling a school requirement by reading term. In his down time, he is usually reading more research oriented materials related to favorite games or hobbies. I would like to build in more classics as he gets older, but as you noted, I don’t want to slow down his pace too much. I like your strategy of having it all available.
Ann Marie, Purnima, and Tara: Your kids are pretty cool! It’s awesome that they read books on science, history, and the like. It’s also cool that your son (Tara’s) reads on games he plays, instead of just taking them as they are and learning only by trial & error.
Purnima, are there classics from India that you’d recommend?
Sophia, I LOVED reading as a child. I remember going to the public library down the street and checking out a HUGE stack of books every week. I take my kids to the library every week and we check out books.
We haven’t needed to establish boundaries about what to read. If my oldest expresses interest in something, I help her find it. I’ve suggested books to her, but she doesn’t always like them, so I don’t push it. She is not the book lover I was at her age, but since I want her to keep reading, I let her make her own selections in hopes she will keep enjoying it.
Hey Eva. That sounds like so much fun!!! I love the library but I didn’t go that much as a child. I just was lucky that my mom had many books at home & let me read any of them. I don’t know if this is why I didn’t take my daughter to the library as much as I thought about taking her. Just habits, I suppose. However, as my daughter has jokingly said, she was my ….experimental child, as the first born (lol), and with our second daughter I will try some other experiments. I took her (the 2 year old) to the library a few days ago and we colored some paper koi fish & read stories. Three days later we were in the car & she says “pleeeease? fish pleeease. Yes please stories!” So we took her again. 🙂 I will keep taking her. Maybe her and her sister will be reading books together some time soon 😉