My children love books. They have been exposed to reading since they were born. Even before they were born, my husband and I read books to them. When I was pregnant with my son, I read about an experiment done with reading to unborn children, and I was intrigued, so we tried it. Since my son learned to read, he has carried a book with him wherever he goes. We started calling him a reading machine several years ago, and he continues to live up to this title. My daughter is an emerging reader and recently told my husband and me that she wanted to be a reading machine like her brother. Well, that was music to my ears!
My son is re-reading the series by Rick Riordan, www.rickriordan.com . He devoured The Lightning Thief in one day while we were on vacation, and couldn’t wait until we returned home to get the second book, Sea of Monsters. He had a gift card for our local Barnes & Noble, which he promptly used to buy Sea of Monsters. He recently got the third book, The Titan’s Curse, which he read the first day he got it. I was intrigued with what I saw the next day, however. I noticed that he picked up The Lightning Thiefand was reading it again. I asked him why he chose that book again when he still had several other new books he hadn’t read yet, and he told me that he had to read all three books in a row without stopping. He said they were so exciting he just couldn’t stop reading them. Wow, what a great testamonial for Rick Riordan and his writing!
My daughter just turned six and loves, loves, loves Fancy Nancy, http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/?authorid=12552 , so a Fancy Nancy birthday party was in order! She invited five friends, all dressed fancy, of course, to her party. We had fancy pizza, parfaits (fancy for ice cream sundaes) , fancy cake, and played fancy games. She wanted to read all three of the Fancy Nancy books that we have, Fancy Nancy, Fancy Nancy and The Posh Puppy, and Fancy Nancy, Bonjour Butterfly, so we had an extended storytime. The goody bags had a copy of Fancy Nancy and the Boy from Paris, sparkly sunglasses, “diamond” sparkly star wand, and a sparkly crown. I think all the girls had quite the fancy time! It was exciting to share a great series of children’s books with other children!
I love sharing book ideas with others, especially children’s books. I look forward to sharing what my children are reading on my blog. I will also share my children’s comments or impressions of the books they read, as well as books I read and have enjoyed. Word of mouth is the best way to learn about great books for children!
Mindful moment: Lately my children have been getting to bed later than normal due to spring break. As a result, I hear myself telling them at night that they need to get to sleep, and it is too late to read. Last night I caught myself before I repeated this new pattern, and remembered how important my storytime or reading time before bed was to me growing up. My daughter and I chose a book that we had been talking about recently, one of The Berenstain Bears books, http://www.berenstainbears.com/. My son heard me reading and called out that he wanted to hear it too, so he got out of bed and joined us as I read. It really was a great 10 minutes and nice reminder to me that those extra 10 minutes wouldn’t make a big difference to them getting up in the morning, but might make a positive addition to their childhood memories.
A Mindful Mom... and more 