Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Discovery


Discovery
Originally uploaded by anniemcq
Oh, yes, it's nearing the end of summer. How do I know? Because my son has had ALMOST enough time to learn how to press all my buttons at once. But it backfired on him today, in a great way. While looking for a movie to watch - even though I had told him we weren't going to watch a movie during the day because he really CAN get through the day without his face glued to some kind of screen - he discovered this Star Wars paperback. It was on the shelf, next to the family friendly dvd's.

All he said was "Wow."

Then it was dead silent in our house for over an hour. At about the half hour mark, he managed to climb up into the giant comfy chair, where he read upside down for another half hour. I'm marking it down on my calendar. Today is the day he first got completely lost in a book. He has always loved to read, but it's always done at bedtime - it's hard to get him to do it during the day for some reason. We read at night, and he's always begging for "just one more chapter", but during the day he gives reading the cold shoulder.

I don't know if he'll ever do it again - I DO know I can't tell him to, because that's a surefire way to make sure he'll never pick up another book - but I'm going to see if I can strategically place more inviting reading materials amongst our movies and computer games.

6 comments:

*Lissa* said...

Great plan! ;o)

Kirsten said...

Those kids are tricky, so we have to be even trickier. Hopefully he'll stay engaged in it and read the whole thing. Maybe there are more quiet hours to come!

karigee said...

oh the sweetness of this.

Donna said...

Love it! I had no idea how many different Star Wars novels were out there until a recent BN trip. I had several as a kid, and they were not too tough to read. Sometimes it's easier to get into the book if you already know some of the characters (I had to watch LOTR before I could make it through the books).

I have had my share of trouble prying the boys away from the TV/DVR/Wii this summer. And now they have discovered Nicktropolis on the internet. El Diablo is not a willing reader, but he was more than happy to listen to me read two books of Captain Underpants!

My 8-year-old would start reading a Magic Tree House book last year and never come up for air. He hasn't managed to tackle bigger books on his own yet, but we have spent summer bedtimes with my reading my old Narnia books to him. We got through Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and we just started the Horse and His Boy. I have to find a replacement for The Final Battle before we get to it since my cocker spaniel ate it back when I was in high school!

Our other favorite reading related activity right now is borrowing the Harry Potter CDs from the library and listening to them in the car. We can do almost a whole disk on the roundtrip to town. I don't think the library was too happy with how long we held onto the Half-Blood Prince though. We did finally get our hands on The Deathly Hallows and are listening to it now.

Jeez, I just tend to ramble on the last day before school, huh? I really should be at "work day," but with no child care, I think they will be happy that I am keeping the monsters here most of the day....

suttonhoo said...

he found the magic.

I think folks who "don't like to read" were never lucky enough to make discoveries like this -- you have to let the books find you.

I fell in love with reading because my dad was a voracious reader and he left books lying around. I found Mark Twain & Steinbeck & Jack London that way; poured through piles of National Geographics; I even memorized the Greek alphabet because I found it in a grown up book that was just lying around and it captivated me.

and I love my dad so much for making a mess with his books.

I love your plan. it's like scattering treasure around.

I, Rodius said...

I was going to suggest for him the Book of Three series by Lloyd Alexander. I loved it more than words can say when I was around his age. But I'm not sure the war themes and the "reanimating the dead by sticking them in the Black Cauldron" kind of thing would be appropriate these days. But I loved it. So much. I guess Star Wars isn't exactly tame, though. And I read it again as an adult many years ago and was shocked by how short and simple it was. I remembered it as long and complex.