Sunday, July 22, 2012

Summer Reading

Boy, it would be cool to have nothing at all to do all summer long but read.  I'd go for that in a heartbeat.  I have been reading (every chance I get) and I've jumped back on the Goodreads bandwagon to track my books.

Two of my kids have summer-reading assignments.  Middle Sister's school has a "One Book, One School" policy where students, faculty and staff all read the same book for the summer.  This year it's The Hunger Games.  While at first I thought the school was selling out by choosing a popular book like that, I've changed my tune; I read the book (and the rest of the series) and there is a LOT in there that high-school students can discuss and analyze--and not just in English class.

Little Brother is required to read two books.  One, A Dog's Life, is required, and he has a generous list of others from which he must choose one more.  He's worked his way through most of that list (Encyclopedia Brown, anything from Dan Gutman's "Baseball Card" series, and a few others) but he steadfastly refuses to touch one of the books:  Charlotte's Web.

I'd almost let him take a pass on that if he'd said that it's a girls' book.  But he has not used that as an excuse.  "It's too big" doesn't fly with me, since last summer he read all the Harry Potter books.  Then he tried, "It's a children's book!"

"Yes, and you're a children," I retorted, using grammatical incorrectness to make a point.

Since he's in the middle of A Dog's Life, I asked him how that one was going.  He said that so far it's a sad story, and launched into a long tale about dogs being left by the side of the road by "one of the wives in the couple," which led Big Brother to muse that this is really a book about Mormons.

3 comments:

Mimi said...

Plus, "Charlotte's Web" is good for a good, cleansing cry ;)

Are we Goodreads friends?

A Secular Franciscan said...

I'm reading "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard. The writing is wonderful.

nicole said...

I kind of wish our school had a summer reading curriculum. My kids read a lot on their own, but I think there is value to a program like that. Alas, public school is different I guess.

There is a lot to talk about from the Hunger Games, so I think it is great that the school is having kids read it. Better to read it and plan to discuss it than ignore it. At least most of the time.

My 9 yo is working her way through Harry Potter this summer. She's on the sixth book. I'm reading along with her (my 3rd or 4th pass through the series) and loving it. Every time she finishes a book we watch the movie as a family (well, parents and two oldest kids; younger ones watch animated movies in my room). It has been really fun.