What We Have Been Reading

 Last fall, the library advertised a boys book club once a month.  The first book was "Where the Red Fern Grows." I had no intention of letting my sons read this book without me there.  And so began our habit of my reading aloud.  And my crying profusely in front of everyone....but, they are totally use it to now.

 Since September, we have also read together "Anne of Green Gables" (Which at least three of us enjoyed), "Jack" (A retelling of Jack and Beanstalk...which I thought was tedious, but everyone else seemed to enjoy), "Babe", "Cheaper by the Dozen", and "Number the Stars".  I may be forgetting one or two...but, I think I've covered the chapter books.  Eric in his turn has read "The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever", "Black Beauty", and is re-reading "The Hobbit"...or introducing John to the Tolkien universe.

 Also, in the last few weeks, we started receiving The Wall Street Journal.  The kids got over their initial disappointment at the lack of comics and started to actually read the articles.  For a while, William was following the situation in India and Pakistan closely.  Dom has discovered the humor of Jason Gay on the Sports page.  And Molly insists on reading the weather section aloud to anyone who will listen.  A bonus is her study of geography at the same time as she lists off cities from all over the world.  I wonder how many are on the Map of the World shower curtain in their bathroom?  And we all have appreciated a perfectly acceptable excuse to procrastinate from truly getting started with days tasks.  The news must be read!

 The kids no longer accompany me to the library each week.  Instead, I steal away during an activity and spend 15 to 20 minutes pulling books that sound interesting or look interesting.  I continue to be amazed at how much the older boys still enjoy reading the picture books I bring home for John.  But, then again, I shouldn't be, some of them are very clever.  We just read a book about grocery shopping that could have been written by any of them back in the day. 

The older boys continue to read just about anything historical.  They read all of the Guts and Glory books available. I catch them reading the Horrible Histories regularly.  William recently pointed out to me that Kazakhistan is technically a landlock country because the Caspian Sea (which is borders) is a lake and not a sea or ocean.  I asked him how he knew this and he referenced a geography book he read by Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame...must be true.  And books about the presidents are always a hit.  Though, they have ventured out to other world leaders we have covered briefly in our history curriculum including Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.  After several math lesson on tesselations, I also introduced Will (again...though he claims he had never heard of him before) to M.C. Escher. 

Molly is also quite the reader.  I have discovered her reading Horrible Histories as well.  But, she also enjoys the Magic Treehouse series and several other series that we've discovered at the library.  Not to mention, she started reading 'Fellowship of the Ring' at night.  I think she has dropped it for now...but, I also know she got farther than I did when I tried to read it for the first time as a college student.

And everyone enjoys reading to John.  Though he is coming along in his ability to read to himself.  I checked out a new Piggie and Gerald book this week, and John read the part of Piggie to my Gerald.

I don't know if the kids are aware that I fully realize they are procrastinating when they pull out their books to read when other schoolwork still needs to be completed.  But, in the end, it is a calculated risk I take.  Afterall...yesterday morning I didn't know that Kazhakistan was technically a land locked state.  Nor what the weather was going to be in Moscow.