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I know there's a lot of parents here, so I thought this would be an interesting discussion full of ideas!
Boy Opera, Operaetta, and I are currently reading the Lemony Snicket series. We began reading them aloud over the summer, and are now on the ninth book, so I guess it's safe to say we like them.
We also read some poems today from A Family of Poems compiled by Caroline Kennedy. It has beautiful illustrations, and a nice selections of poems. I was reading to the big kids when Mr. Opera said, "I think you have a third listener." Space Space Baby was laying on his playmat mesmorized by the fall and rise of of the poems!
For independent reading, Operaetta really likes the Step 1 and 2 books. She also loves the Dick and Jane books. Boy Opera reads a pretty wide variety of nonfiction and fiction. One of his recent favorites was The Indian in the Cupboard .
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Mine loved The Indian in the Cupboard! And my first- and second-graders love to read the Magic Tree House series. Not my personal favorite, but they love to read them so much, I encourage them.
Together we've been reading the Narnia series this school year. We've done The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, and now we're on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Even the 3-year-old loves to be in the room and listen as we read them, although I don't know that he's understanding a word of it. I've run into a lot of people who are reading those right now, probably because of the movie.
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Emily is reading every library book she brings home so she can take the Accelerated Reader test and move up levels, she wants to be on level 3.5 by the end of the year. But, in her spare time she's working her way through Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg Definitely an advanced book for a 2nd grader, and she has to occasionally come to me for help with a word or two but overall she's doing well.
Daniel loves Dr. Seuss, we read a Dr. Seuss book every night before bed, his current favorite is "There's a Wocket in my Pocket." Abigail is the only one who doesn't love books like the other three. She'll listen when I read to any of the others, but rarely comes to me and asks me to read to her on her own.
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Right now we're in an LDS series "Tennis Shoes among the Nephites" but we've also loved Indian in the cupboard and have started the Narnia series but took time off.
My first grader is enjoying Nate the Great books and my fourth grader loves Encyclopedia Brown. Mysteries are a hit apparently.
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Sweetbaboo, do you enjoy those "Tennis Shoes" books? I've wondered about them, and wouldn't mind trying them, but they aren't in the local library and I don't want to spend the money on them if it turns out they're ... corny.
(I loved Encyclopedia Brown! )
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I'm still technically a kid. Last thing that I read was A Feast For Crows by George R. R. Martin. However, I'm thinking that the "A Song of Ice and Fire" is probably not a great series for young kids.
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I want the Caroline Kennedy poem book. I have started collecting childrens books for my future classroom, so last night I bought one of the American alphabet books.
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sweetbaboo - I'm reading "Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites" to my 10-year-old daughter, Cayla. She couldn't get into it on her own (this is a girl who has read all the Harry Potter books), but enjoys it when I read it to her.
Also, both my daughters and I are or have been reading Inkheart and Inkspell - we've been taking turns.
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GoodletHRKL is working on Eldest, the second book by Christopher Paolini. She and a friend went to the used bookstore yesterday looking for King and Card that the collective families didn't already own.
The little one (we still haven't decided on a screen name for her yet) is working through a series of phonetics books by Jane Moncure. And she picks these out all by herself <-proud momma
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I'm reading John Stroud's Gate of Ptolemy to my wife, and The Sneetches, Horton Hears a Who, and the Little Critter books are in heavy rotation with my daughter.
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My father read Treasure Island to me as a child.
Edit: I also read James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe out loud to my brother when I was eight and he was six.
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Little House on the Prairie (and the other Laura Ingalls Wilder books), Anne of Green Gables, all the Harry Potter books, of course (though we make sure they're asleep when the scary parts come up), Little Women, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Narnia books (though they only had patience for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), A Wrinkle in Time, and a few more I can't remember right now. This is all stuff we read to our five- and three-year-old.
I like this thread - these are all great ideas.
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My almost-twelve-year-old is reading A Spell for Chameleon (the first Xanth novel) and loving it. Since she already loves the Pern books, assimilation is well underway. (She disliked the Star Trek book she tried, but I think that will simply require another couple years.)
Nathan has been plowing through this series about Owl's - ga-hoolean something or the other - all week. He got three of them for his birthday on Sunday, and read all three before Wednesday, and is finishing up book 5.
He's also - more slowly - going through Ender's Shadow.Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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JennaDean, I've only read two of the Tennis Shoes books, and didn't even start at the beginning, but for LDS kids' books, they're pretty darned decent.
As for mine, well, her favorite is still Moo, Baa, La La La! She's also really into Pat the Bunny.
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My oldest, John, is in 4th grade and we recently read the The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and listened to Gert Fram by our good host. John really liked Gert Fram alot. When John reads alone, he's been reading Dan Gutman's The Kid Who Ran For President, The Kid Who Became President and Million Dollar Shot.
Gert Fram is in Card's collection of short stories called Angles and Other Stories. I would highly recommend the majority of this audio collection for a fourth grade and older audience. The readings are terrific and I marvel at the breadth of imagination and insight in Card's work all over again.
Middle Woman, also from this short story collection, is a classic and I'd love to see it as an illustrated children's book.
Jacob, my youngest, just turned 7 and he loves the Junie B. Jones books. He reads them alone and I read them to him. They are great fun to read out loud.
When I am reading to both boys, lately I've been reading the poem and quote book, It's Not Easy Being Green.
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The Boogashaga children Started out with a series of "Golden Book-type books" from a large supermarket chain here that featured the Disney characters. We went from there to R. L. Stein's children's books. After that, they hit the varoius public libraries near the Boogashaga manse and went through almost everything therein. Daughter version 2.0 (17 years old) has read all of Dan Brown's stuff and is movining through C. S. Lewis currently (Screwtape Letters, I believe). They also did J. R. R. Tolkein (including the Silmarrilian {sp?}). We never did the young LDS stuff. I don't even know if it was available 15-19 years ago. Even if it was, we didn't try. Oh well.
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I just finished reading the boys The Magician's Nephew. The one before that was I Want to Go Home! by Gordon Korman (borrowed from Ophelia).
The boys loved both of them, but Robert would take the Gordon Korman one and read ahead. We all laughed out loud in several places, and it was generally a blast. Dear, sweet Ophelia loaned us a few more of his books, so I guess we'll be reading them before we move on to more Narnia.
Robert is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as a biography of Neil Armstrong for school. Liam is just learning to read well, so he picks up a lot of the smaller books with lots of pictures and puzzles through them. He especially likes the superhero-ish ones.
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quote:The boys loved both of them, but Robert would take the Gordon Korman one and read ahead. We all laughed out loud in several places, and it was generally a blast.
That book was a childhood favorite of both my husband's and mine. Since we had very different taste in kids' books in general growing up, I'm going to have to say that it must have some kind of near-universal appeal. (Being written by a kid might be part of it.)
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For the young ones, all my kids really get a kick out of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. They started with Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and they have read it so many times that when I saw there were others I grabbed them. The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog is just as funny as the first.
Oh, and all my kids have just about worn out the Sesame Street book, The Monster at the End of This Book. It's hilarious.
I like the suggestion of the Little House books, I think when we finish the Narnia series we'll start those.
And some of us were speaking of The Indian in the Cupboard ... my kids have Lincoln Logs with little plastic cowboys and Native Americans. Invariably the figures get left scattered all over the floor even when all the logs get put away. There's one "Indian" on the floor in the bathroom, it's been stepped on and broken, and I just can't bring myself to throw it away. Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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JennaDean, yes we are enjoying the Tennis Shoes books. For me (I've only read the first two) they were a quick, fast read. We purchased 5 more books in the series through half.com so my 9 yo could keep going. (*Sorry it took me so long to respond, I have competition for the computer over the weekend)
CaySedai, my daughter didn't start reading them on her own until the middle of the second book when she couldn't stand that I would only read a chapter or two a night and she wanted more...(which is when I did the happy dance that she finally was hooked by something!)
We've also read the City of Ember and the City of Light by Avi.
Has anyone seen the Read-A-Loud Handbook by Jim Trelease? The first half is why reading out loud to your kids is important (backed up with statistics, studies and reading strategies) and the last half are lists and lists of books that are appropriate to read out loud by different ages, with summaries and other similar books (because even though some books are fabulous to read alone, they sound weird/are difficult to read out loud). Anyway, it's been a fabulous resource for me and I thought I'd share.
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Amanda (12) wants me to point out that she's reading Discworld books (currently on Reaper Man and Small Gods).
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quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: And some of us were speaking of The Indian in the Cupboard ... my kids have Lincoln Logs with little plastic cowboys and Native Americans...
"Mom! We're gonna go outside and play Cowboys and Native Americans!"
Okay, um, carry on.
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*sniff* We always said that growing up. Actually, we said "Cowherders and Native Americans." Because, you know, I am not a boy.
My brother was also fond of the expression "American Government Giver." Someone called him an "Indian giver" once, and once it was explained to him, he said, "Hmph, should be American government giver." And it was, in our family, from then on.
He also corrected his kindergarten teacher when she instructed the class to sit "Indian style" one day.
Okay, so I come from a strange family.
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Oooh - I'm gonna have to get the Fairy Dust book for Operaetta to read aloud with her; she'd love it (she has a fairy-decorated room). Maybe for Easter.
Shan, Boy Opera has read some of the Owl series as well - the first 3, I believe.
Has anyone seen the Usborne board books that are titled, "That's not my..." Space Space Baby has the one called That's Not my Puppy and it's adorable.
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I don't have any kids, but I have to read a short book to K-second graders for my speech class. I will be reading Captain Underpants . It is a cute book and kids at that age always get a kick out of the word "underpants"
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My six-year-old is really, really into the Encyclopedia Brown books right now. He checked three of them out of the library and read them all within three days or so. He likes reading them first, then having me read them to him to see if I can solve the mysteries; if I can't, he triumphantly explains it to me.
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quote:Oh, and all my kids have just about worn out the Sesame Street book, The Monster at the End of This Book. It's hilarious.
Sophie too (19mos)! She also loves "Kiss Kiss" Jan Brett's The Mitten and The Gingerbread Baby, There's a Wocket in my Pocket, Sleepy Dog, The A Book, Karen Katz's flap books (Toes, Ears and Nose is the one we have). She really clings to favorite books, but there are always a handful and they seem to change just as we think we couldn't read any more of that book.
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I read The Secret Garden to Aerin (4.5 months chronological, 5 weeks adjusted) when she was in the hospital. We read Dr. Seuss, Winnie the Pooh, our Shabbat book, Amelia Bedelia, and Goodnight Moon.
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Matthew, 8, is heavily into The Enchanted Forest Chronicles .
Olivia, 6 just got some My Little Pony books that she likes to read. I am reading the Harry Potter books.
Andrew, 3 likes be to read Where is my Cow? by Terry Pratchett, Godzilla Likes to Roar and Bob the Builder books.
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Found a fun series that my kids are enjoying by Jenny Nimmo. The first book is Midnight for Charlie Bone. There are five Charlie Bone books in the series and I would recommend them.
Here's the blerb from the back of Midnight for Charlie Bone. "Charlie doesn't want to believe it when he discovers that he can hear the thoughts of people in photographs. But his horrible aunts are delighted - it means that he is one of the chosen and must attend the Bloor's Acadeny for gifted children. Once there, Charlie realizes that some of his classmates have equally mysterious powers and soon Charlie is involved in uncovering the mysterious past of one of them"
Edit to add: I also have loved most pictures books by Mark and/or Carolyn Buehner, Taxi Dog, Snowmen at Night, Marvin the Ape, there is one about a witch. They cleverly hide fun things in their illustrations.
Oh and clever illustrations make me think of The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base. Great picture book with visual clues to solve for age 8-adult probably. (My husband and I had fun figuring it all out before we had kids.)
Books are on my mind, does anyone have anything else to add to the list?
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Besides their school books? Dan is 10 and is working his way through Eragon on his own. Jen frequently reads a bit of Junie B. Jones to Boo, and is working on A Little Princess by herself. Boo loves to look at picture books, especially ones with helicopters, airplanes, trains, animals, or food. He also loves to lay in bed with Daddy and "read" magazines together, discussing the pictures in detail.
Together, we are reading James and the Giant Peach at "just-came-in-from-playing-and-need-to-calm-down" time, various poetry at after-dinner time, and the Narnia series at bedtime. Unfortunately, Boo doesn't last for more than half a page before he's snoring, but that's okay.
That's not counting their school books. There were 11 last time I counted, but the number fluctuates between 8 and 15.
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My husband has a copy of James Herriot's Dog Stories that all of us adore listening to him (or sometimes me) read. Especially the ones about a dog named Tricky Woo. There's just such a sense of absurdity, even in the names, that the stories about Tricky Woo appeal to all of us from baby to adult.
In fact, we are enjoying it so much that I am considering checking out All Creatures Great and Small and trying us on installment reading (Emma has such a short attention span that she has hitherto demanded stories that can be told in one sitting. So that means kids' books, and short stories. But I think that a longer memoir with plenty of natural "stopping places" could be a bridge to longer fiction.)
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Boon, I like how you read your kids poetry. That's so cool!
I had a poetry book when I was a kid. Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. I loved that book! I even drew a picture of me in orange and wrote my name in really big letters with the same orange crayon like 5 or 6 year olds are wont to do. I still had it up until I left Canada.
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I loved that book growing up too, quid, but my absolute favorite book of poetry was Sing a Song of Popcorn, which I still have and read to my girls. Close seconds were Joyful Noise and I Am Phoenix, two books of "Poems for Two Voices" by Paul Fleischman. (He's also the author of one of my all-time favorite historical kids' books, The Borning Room.) My husband and I should read some of those to Emma, I wonder how she'd like that. When she gets older we ill definitely read them with her like my daddy did with me, that was such fun as a kid.
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Boon
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We have that very same, exact book, and love it well! It gets lots of off-the-shelf time.
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Oh, boy!!! I was gonna ask but then I thought that was harassing you. E-mail me and tell me how you like it. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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(And I'll call you tomorrow if you're gonna have time.)
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Boon
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The Treasury is wonderful, KQ, and the illustrations are just...wow. Really.
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Boon
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Yep, I love it, and I'd love to talk to you. The kids have karate and I have to grocery shop in the afternoon, so anytime before 2 would be great.
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Yeah, I just checked and the new edition of your present goes for $122! I guess I did good at the thrift store! I saw it and just couldn't help but get it for you. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I guess I did good at the thrift store! I saw it and just couldn't help but get it for you. ![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
