What we were reading, February 2009

[I'm mining my blog for an assignment, and I was horrified by the large number of draft posts I found. I'm throwing this up for archival purposes, in case I ever print a blog book someday. And no, I do not know why I never polished this and put it up. As a reminder, Gemma and Elba and Wilder had just turned eight and were in second grade when I wrote this at the beginning of February, 2009.]

Gemma's reading is most familiar to me: speeding through books she's read before, counting up the number of times she's read Muggie Maggie or pulling down the Secret Unicorn boxed set one more time.  Elba went to the library with Calder on Sunday and came home with astronomy books.  She puts her name on the school library wait-list for Avatar comics.  Wilder will read a novel if I read a compelling first chapter aloud, but mostly he sticks to Calvin & Hobbes.  He chose a catalog of all the Pokemon cards for his selection at the book fair.

All three kids read Calvin & Hobbes at breakfast.  Three of the budget-book hardcover editions have lost their covers from constant use.  When I set out the three "Through Time" books we owned or recently acquired on my bed, Wilder and Elba dove into the pages looking for the hidden figures, and fought over who could read the new Port Through Time first.

After The Lightening Thief, but before Sea of Monsters, we started reading By the Shores of Silver Lake.  Wilder was just as likely as his sisters to pick it up and start reading ahead, while waiting for siblings to finish the bedtime routine.  Gemma will dive into Captain Underpants if she sees it lying at the end of my bed.

In the past six months to a year, I started all of these books, but none of them kept the kids' attention long enough to reach the end:

• The Invention of Hugo Cabret
• My Side of the Mountain
• The Tale of Desperaux
• The Children of Greene Knowe
• Time Cat
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

[A Note from February 2012: Eventually, at least one child embraced each of these books, with the exception of Greene Knowe. One of the iconic titles from my childhood library, and it's never caught any of their attention.]

When Narnia failed, I decided to try a different approach: I rented the 1979 animated adaptation I once adored, and we ended up watching it three times.  I had forgotten how poor the animation was, and the American accents grated, but unlike the recent movie version, this movie stuck to Lewis's own words and vision of the characters.  I was worried the kids would think the animation was cheesy, but they were enthralled.  They demanded to read Prince Caspian immediately; the rest of the series came out of the box so each child had something to read.

But neither Wilder nor Elba finished whichever books they had chosen, and while Gemma may have snuck off with Caspian and read the conclusion, we never finished the book as a group.  There wasn't any hue and cry to halt immediately: the kids' attention just wandered off and never returned.

All three kids climb out of the car asking me to read the next chapter of Sea of Monsters.  That's why I'm not letting my reluctance at the story's dark turns get in the way.

Comments

[magpie]

We're reading Hugo Cabret, right now. Did you see the movie?

(I ordered my 2011 book last night...)