Summer reading at the library

I took the kids to the library to sign up for the summer reading program and to get a book from the RIF distribution. Jaymie picked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Julia chose Froggy's Halloween, Stanley grabbed Arthur Babysits, and I got The Very Hungry Caterpillar for Trevor, as our copy has been read to pieces.

The reading program is nothing too exciting -- read (or be read to) for 15 minutes each day. After 10 days you get a sticker and a ticket to the Durham Bulls (Triple A baseball team). 20 days nets a bookmark and a Golden Corral meal coupon, and 30 days earns you a badge and a pass to the skating rink. We'll get one of the Barnes and Noble reading program flyers for Jaymie as well.

We haven't read so much lately -- Kristen and I are dealing with sleep deprivation issues. After reading a couple of chapters of The Wizard of Oz to Jaymie and Julia last night, I fell asleep on the floor, using the book as a pillow. Hopefully, the library program will keep us honest.

I got The Day the Babies Crawled Away at Allison's suggestion. Stanley likes it a lot. Stanley has also been enjoying The Best Nest.

Jaymie is reading The Secret of the Indian by Lynne Reid Banks.

Julia has been picking books at random off of the shelf lately.

Movies from books

I'm still reading to Jaymie and Julia together. For our next book, I decided to get a couple of books that have been made into movies: L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz and Walter Farley's The Black Stallion. The vote was for The Wizard of Oz, so that's what we are reading.

I have never read the book before -- it's a great read-aloud, with short chapters, but a long sustained narrative. The girls have never seen the movie, so they don't have any preconceived notions of how the characters look or sound. I'm not sure if I'll let them see the movie after we're finished -- the girls are awfully sensitive to scary scenes in movies, and The Wizard of Oz is famously terrifying.

Dragons

Following Jen's suggestion, I read Ruth Stiles Gannett's trilogy of dragon books to Jaymie and Julia this week. Jaymie had previously read them on her own and heard them on tape, but Julia was unfamiliar with the books. We own My Father's Dragon and Elmer and the Dragon and we borrowed The Dragons of Blueland from the library. These books are just about the right length for Julia. They are about about 80 pages each, but there are many illustrations, and the print is large, so that reading an entire book takes only about 40 minutes. We read the second book, Elmer and the Dragon in one night. By contrast, the edition of the Narnia books that we own (the new Harper Collins paperbacks with color illustrations by Pauline Bynes -- highly recommended) take me about a page a minute, so I generally read one or two chapters per night (15-30 pages).

The first book is clearly the best, in my opinion. Julia lost interest tonight for the last half of The Dragons of Blueland, the last book in the trilogy. Jaymie enjoyed the books again.

Kristen's mother is in town this week to help with the baby. I think I'm going to start The Last Battle with Jaymie and have Grandma read to Julia.

In other family reading news, Julia read an easy reader to Kristen this morning. She's still not super excited about reading by herself, but every once in a while she gets interested. Jaymie read The Celery Stalks at Midnight by James Howe (a part of the Bunnicula series) this week. I find that I'm having a hard time keeping track of what Jaymie reads on her own these days. I should probably have her keep track herself. Stanley has been asking for various Mother Goose books lately.

Of course, with the new baby, the kids have been doing a lot more movie watching than reading lately. Mulan -- not bad. Mulan II -- blech. Spirited Away -- a classic.

A new read-aloudee

Our fourth child, Trevor was born this morning.

Read-alouds may suffer temporarily if Kristen and I are sleep deprived. Or I may have more time than usual, since I'll take some time off. Who knows?

Reading, May 5, 2005

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we did nothing in particular.

I did finish reading The Silver Chair to Jaymie. She was very excited to read this book -- every night she would pester me to read to her. Since she's not swimming early in the morning for the next few weeks, I let her stay up a little later than usual so we could get our reading in. Jaymie has enjoyed all of the Narnia books so far.

I read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to Julia tonight at her request. She has been enjoying hearing poems from Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends as well. Last night we read Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman. It's one of my favorite picture books as well.

Stanley continues to love Bright House, Night House.

Kristen hasn't been feeling well, so I've been reading to both of the girls, meaning that they get less reading time individually than when we split up so Kristen reads to one of them and I read to the other. I'm going to try to find something they can both listen to together, since things aren't going to improve much once the baby comes. Jen at Time for Reading suggested My Father's Dragon. Jaymie has heard and read this several times, but I'm sure she would enjoy it again. Julia has heard this book on tape before, so maybe this might work.

I picked up Hank the Cowdog on tape and in book form at a used book sale recently. The girls have both enjoyed hearing this book during their quiet time. They've started quoting from it. I've never read it, so I don't have much else to say about it. I noticed that there are many books in the series, so we may get some more of these.

Read-alouds vs. Movies

I'm almost done reading The Silver Chair to Jaymie. She is prone to bad dreams when she sees scary, violent, or intense movies, and I was worried when we started that the book would be too disturbing for her. However, we finished reading the worst parts on Friday (when Prince Rilian kills the Lady of the Green Kirtle in the form of a giant green serpent), and although she was concerned that she might have bad dreams, she slept just fine that night.

Even though read-alouds and movies are similar in that they are both experienced somewhat passively, there is a difference between the two. Read-alouds engage the imagination more than movies. With a read-aloud, what the mind's eye sees is entirely up to the listener. Perhaps this is why Jaymie seems to handle scary read-alouds better than scary movies -- it could be that it is more difficult to imagine the action in a book subconsciously than it is to recall the images presented on a movie or TV screen.

In other read-aloud news, we didn't have lots of reading time this weekend due to various activities. As an alternative to our usual reading, I've started reading poems to the girls at night when we don't have much time to read. We're starting with selections from Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends