It Only Took A Year...

It only took a year, but we did it!  My daughter and I finished reading all 8 books in the Anne of Green Gables series.  I gave her the first book last year, in early June, for her 9th birthday, and I was determined that we should finish before her 10th, as more literary gifts await her.  Thankfully, we met the deadline with over a week to spare.  I had visions of us staying up late in the night before her birthday in an effort to reach my self-imposed deadline.

No, we did not read Anne every night.   My younger daughter is too young for Anne, so if I only had time for joint reading, Anne didn't make the cut.  And there were times when we needed a break, a palate cleanser, when my daughter was in the mood for picture books (which she still loves, much to my delight), or something else entirely.

At times it was tough going.  The language is flowery and old-fashioned.  The middle books tend to be gossipy stories about people Anne interacts with and less about Anne herself.  And the final book, set during World War I, has lots of arcane (to my 9-year-old) references to military personnel, politicians, and battles.

But it was worth it.  There's a kind of satisfaction in finishing a series.  The other series we have done this with are the Betsy-Tacy books, the Ramona books (multiple times, but a much quicker read) and the All-of-a-Kind Family books (ditto, and sadly, the last book was quite disappointing).

I know lots of people have done the same with Harry Potter.  What other series have you read aloud to your children in their entirety?  How long did it take you?

Wonderful, Even Out of Order

Despite the fact that I'm incredibly messy with physical things (just ask my husband), I'm pretty organized when it comes to mental tasks.  If a book is part of a series, I read it in order.  And I finish the series (with rare exceptions).  That's why I was horrified to discover my daughter reading Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice books out of order.  Out of order!  Who does such a thing?  And yet, when I picked one up, I understood. 

Some of the many Alice books, out of order.

Alice's voice is so real, so frank, so matter-of-fact, that you can't help but be drawn in.  And, being, let us say, frugal, I put the books on hold at the library and they arrived out of order, leaving us with a random assortment as we await earlier ones in the series.  But once my daughter had read one, she just couldn't wait to read the others.  (The books were actually written slightly out of order, with the prequels coming later, as younger readers clamored to get in on the Alice action.  Moreover, with 28 books in the series (!!!), we'll see if my daughter actually reads them all.)


I picked up the one where Alice is in seventh grade (Alice in Rapture, Sort Of).  I opened it to the middle (hey, once you're reading the series out of order, why not pick up an individual book halfway through?), to this part:

"It's bodies!" Elizabeth told us.  "I mean, they're so embarrassing."

"Everybody's got one," I said.

"The noises they make!" she said.  "I have to eat four crackers just before I go out with Tom to keep my stomach from growling."

Pitch perfect, right?  Alice isn't horribly embarrassed by her body, as her friend Elizabeth is, but neither is she entirely comfortable with it.  What girl or woman is?


A few pages later, Alice describes her friend Pamela's bikini bathing suit.

"I knew her mother had gone with her to buy it.  I wondered why a mother would buy such a suit for a daughter who wasn't supposed to kiss until she was sixteen.  Some parents don't seem to have a bit of sense."

Don't you just love her?!?

When her boyfriend kisses her, she tells him simply and straightforwardly, "I don't think I'm ready for this yet."  And in the perfect touch, "He looked a little relieved himself."

The Alice books are some of the most-censored books out there.  What a pity.  Alice is a wonderful guide for young girls.  She's the big sister every girl has wished for and no one has ever had.  The time to read these books is when the reader is just a bit younger than Alice is in each book.  I'm thrilled my 8-year-old came upon these books.

If only we had them in order.

Library Loot #18, Part 2

Chapter books we have out from the library right now.  Most of these were chosen by my 7-year-old, but I admit to holding on to a few to fill in some of my kidlit gaps.

Due to technical difficulties, the photography leaves a lot to be desired.  But you can still see what we're reading!

 

 

As you can see, she is still heavily into series: Katie Kazoo Switcheroo, the Weird School books, the Humphrey books, the , those fairy books, the Amazing Days of Abby Hayes series, the Piper Reed series and the American Girl books.

What is your chapter-book-reader reading?

More Books for a Seven-Year-Old

My daughter has been happily devouring books, sometimes even turning down activities like playing with her sister and baking with me in order to read!  She's been zigzagging back and forth between the series I mentioned here, as well as adding some new favorites to her list.  Here they are:

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty McDonald.  My daughter loved this one and we're going to look for the others in the series.  I haven't read it and now it's on MY reading list now, since in each chapter Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle provides a "cure" for a different childhood misbehavior: picky eating, messy rooms, "answering back."  I could use the help!

The American Girl books.  These books are several series, actually, each about a different girl and each set during a different time (and place) in American history.  They are related to the extravagantly expensive American Girl dolls, with the girl on the cover of each book made to look like the corresponding doll, but the books make no explicit reference to the dolls, not even at the end of the books or on the back cover!  There are no product tie-ins at all!  So if your child doesn't already know of the existence of the dolls, these books won't clue her in.  The books are short but the vocabulary is not easy, and some of the concepts introduced are difficult or may be new to your child.  Mine exclaimed in confusion and frustration when reading about the selling of slaves, "But how could people be sold?  What does that even mean?!?"  At the end of each book is a short (5 pages or so) non-fiction description of the historical era in which each book is set.  A nice introduction to historical fiction.

The Year of the ... books by Grace Lin.  This well-known semi-autobiographical series by Grace Lin, with the first two books named for a year in the Chinese zodiac, follow Pacy Lin as she struggles with the normal difficulties of growing up and being different.  The third (and so far, last) book in the series doesn't follow the naming convention and is Dumpling Days.  All three are wonderful.

The Dessert books by Hallie Durand. 

The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe's Very First Case: A Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Book for Young Readers by Alexander McCall Smith.  The author of the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency books has gone back in time and written about his protagonist as a child.  This is a gentle, non-scary mystery with an exotic (to us) setting in Africa.  So far this is the only book for children but I suspect this prolific author will not stop here!

Stand-alone books that she's read include:

The Pepins and their Problems by Polly Horvath.

A Necklace of Raindrops by Joan Aiken.

What has your child been reading?

Non-scary Realistic Fiction for a Seven-Year-Old

The title of this post is cumbersome but accurate.  My 7-year-old loves reading books about kids like herself, realistic books that are not scary at all.  Here is a list of the series that she's been enjoying this summer.  Some I had heard of; some we just found at the library.  The difficulty level varies quite a bit - some of the books are easier, or shorter, or both - but I don't believe in restricting her only to books that are at her level.  These are in addition, of course, to those I've read to her and mentioned elsewhere: the Ramona series, the Betsy-Tacy books, the Fudge books, and the Little House books.  Without further ado:

The Dyamonde Daniel books by Nikki Grimes

The Amber Brown books by Paula Danziger

The Ivy and Bean series by Annie Barrows

The Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker

The Weird School series by Dan Gutman

The Wayside School series by Louis Sachar

The Zigzag Kids books by Patricia Reilly Giff

The Ready, Freddy! books by Abby Klein

The Sophie books by Lara Bergen

The Humphrey the Hamster series by Betty G. Birney (okay, this one may be slightly less realistic)

The Nikki and Deja books by Karen English

The Frankly, Frannie books by A.J. Stern

The Anna Hibiscus series by Atinuke

The Judy Moody books by Megan McDonald

The Simply Sarah series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

The Piper Reed books by Kimberly Willis Holt

Do you have any other realistic fiction series to recommend to her?

The Comfort (or the Dullness) of Predictability

Sometimes it is comforting to pick up a book, and pretty much know how things in it are going to work out.  Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, that kind of thing (or its equivalent for the younger set).  This is what accounts for the popularity of series books that follow a particular format.  The Magic Tree House books, the A to Z Mysteries - you know what you're getting when you crack one of those open.

The flip side of this is, naturally, that sometimes knowing what is going to happen is just boring.  Having noticed that my daughter, after racing through the first six Magic Ballerina books, let the next one languish after we received it from her friend, I asked her why.  After some admittedly leading questions, she explained she was tired of them.  As a kid, I was in the other camp and loved the Nancy Drew mysteries and later, embarrassingly, the Sweet Valley High books.

Series that follow a character as she grows and changes are, of course, different, which is why my daughter still loves the Ramona series, the Little House on the Prairie books, the Fudge series and, so far, the Princess Posey books.

So what about you and your kids?  Are you lovers of formulaic series or do you find them boring?