Novels, reading and other musings
"You can't make her read or write. But you can make her not want to."—Joyce Fetteroll
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| Damek, somewhere between 4 and 6 months old |
Damek and I started a new novel yesterday, 'Leven Thumps' by Obert Skye. Damek and I have been reading novels together since Damek was 4 years old. I remember loving reading as a young child. I remember seeing both my parents read books for pleasure. My dad in particular had a real passion for reading tackling a few different books at a time on different topics. We had books all over our house (on bookshelves, in end tables, on tabletops, ect..) as well as many different magazines on many different topics.
One of my favorite places to read was in our living room behind a chair in the corner of the room. I remember getting my Scholastic order at school and not being able to listen to a thing the teacher said after that, because all I wanted to do was get home to get started on my books:) That being said, I can't remember reading any books for pleasure once I started middle school and on into the first part of college. Too much of my time was taken up reading about topics I had absolutely no interest in for tests or school assignments. Reading became a chore and more often then not for me, something to be avoided. I loathed reading for those years because I could not retain information for the life of me and constantly had to read and re-read assigned passages because my mind would wander to the place or thing I would rather be doing (or subject I would rather be reading about).
Having children to read to, and one that has a real passion for novels has brought back my love of reading full force and I'm loving it. Reading, or not reading, will always be a choice for my children, and by having the choice they will remember and retain what they read because it will have been something that interested them enough to want to read about it in the first place. The saying is true "what you learn with pleasure, you never forget".
2 comments:
Wanted to say that I'm glad your love of reading has come back :) I used to HATE reading aloud, and while it's still not my favorite thing to do, I really do enjoy reading with my kids. I've been reading the Guardians of Ga'Hoole with my daughter (with my son listening in), and the Droon books with my son (with my daughter listening in) :) We've been keeping track of the books we've read aloud together, and that we've each read separately, for the last two years. It's really amazing to see the lists grow, and track the kids interests and favorites. Love, love, love books and reading :) You'll have to do a review post on Leven Thumps when you're done - it might end up on our reading list!
It's definitely been interesting to see the types of books he is interested in. Thanks for sharing the titles your reading, we'll check them out.
Oh, and I didn't mention that Kyan, our 6 year old does listen in on a lot of them but hasn't come across anything that he particularly wants to read with me.
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