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The other morning when I went in to rouse Squashie (AKA Josh) from his deep slumber, this is what I found... an angel with 16 books stacked on his nightstand.
Each night Josh stays up much later than he should to read. We recently received a huge order of books for homeschool and he's been devouring them. Yesterday he was looking all over for the dictionary so that he could look up some unknown word. (The word was "water-butt" from C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian ~ what the heck is a water-butt?)
I've noticed an interesting parallel between entertaining media and reading: When we are engaged in one, we aren't engaged in the other. Although we don't subscribe to cable television, we have a lot of other entertainment alternatives. Between video game systems, computers, and Blockbuster we can keep ourselves plenty entertained without cable.
I like to think we're pretty strict about of rules of usage, but there are occasions (like holidays)that we just let it all slide and the kids are found endlessly watching DVDs or playing video games. During those times, that is all they want to do. It's addictive. One game leads to another which leads to bickering and arguing. It's maddening.
And then I remember.
And we put it all away and turn off everything extraneous and pull out a good book. We just finished The 21 Balloons and now we're reading Prince Caspian. (Which caused Josh to sneak the book during the day to read ahead of us.) The family reading then leads to personal reading.
Peace falls over the house as I find noses in books in every room... Just the way I like it.
I remember staying up late to read. My head under the covers with a flashlight, hoping mom and dad wouldn't find me and make me go to bed. Isn't reading great! I hope I can instill that same love of reading in my kids
ReplyDeleteChristopher & Alanna are always found with their noses in a book, and they also stay up very late at night reading. I love it! Megan is still learning how to read so I have the pleasure of reading to her at night. I am going to read Old Yeller to the kids during Christmas break. Yes, we have cable, a Wii, DS's & computer games, but my kids are more often found reading and I love it!!! Of course, homeschooling affords a lot of time for such pursuits.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I am currently in the middle of 3 really good books myself: Moloka'i , John Adams; Reluctant Patriot of the Revolution, and Eclipse (my fluff reading!).
Some of my recent favorite books:
ReplyDeleteThe Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir, and the Dragon Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner (an LDS author, put out by Shadow Mountain, Deseret Book's national imprint) the second book is due out in Feb. or March. I just read the advanced reading copy for it!
Adventurers Wanted: Slathbog's Gold by ML Forman (another LDS author being put out by Shadow Mountain) I read the advanced reading copy and it's coming out in February... look for it!
I will be sooooo happy when Jaden is able to read his own stories. We are at a point where he wants ONE book read every night over and over and over. I could tell the story by heart! I know....time will fly by!
ReplyDeleteI love that! I love reading and I can relate to staying up way later than I should because I just HAVE to read "one more chapter" which of course leads to about ten.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I was asking Avery who she wanted to invite to her birthday party and Abby chimed in, "what about Josh?" I asked Josh who? And she says, " The big one with Sam." Anyway, pretty funny that she remembered them playing over here. So I guess your invited to her party.. to bad it's not in Kodiak.