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.