How To Get Your Kids to Love Reading

Jon Scieszka, author of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and the Time Warp Trio series, has some terrific ideas how to get your kids to love reading. Before he started writing children’s books, he was a teacher, so his ideas have been field tested. Find out what your child really loves and then find books, magazines, or any kind of text about that subject. Whether your child loves mysteries or space or fairy tales, there are chapter books, short stories, picture books, graphic novels, comics and audio books. One additional thing he does not mention is READ to your kids! Start early and keep reading to them even when they can read what they want on their own. You can read the whole interview at the Musings blog (Parnassus Books).

Luckily, John Scieszka has a website devoted to getting boys to read called Guys Read. He has organized his recommendations into categories like, How to build stuff, Realistic kids in realistic situations and one sure to be a hit with my grandsons, At least one explosion. Other categories include Series, Ghosts and Action/Adventure and several more. Scieszka includes comics (Gary Larson’s The Far Side comic books are prominently featured), graphic novels, magazines and audio books.

Hat tip: Imagination Soup

NYPL: 100 Best Children’s Book for 2013

The New York Public Library is out with an interactive list of the best children's books of 2013. You can search by reading level, genre and theme. Click on a book that interests you and it will take you to a short description  of the story. There is something for everyone.

NYPL Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years

The New York Public Library (NYPL) presented its first ever list of the Top Children’s Books of the Last 100 Years. Many of the books are no surprise: Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Some have been featured on this blog: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Holes by Louis Sacher and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. There are books that I loved as a kid: Charlotte’s Web by E B White, Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans and The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien. A generation later my children loved: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. My grandchildren love: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J K Rowling .  Check out the  complete list at School Library Journal.

James Patterson & Jon Scieszka Want Your Kids to Read

James Patterson has been all over the media promoting a book, Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli and Snake Hill, the latest in his popular  Middle School series.  Even in his TV commercial for the book, he is taking time to encourage you to get your kids reading. In his interview for public radio’s Marketplace, he said he worries that the popularity of e-books with adults are leaving kids behind. He released both an adult thriller and his newest Middle School book on the same day for that reason. He ended the interview by saying that if your child is not a good reader, you are sending them out into the world with a handicap. That is the issue right there and the purpose of this blog. To find out more about his new book, check out his NPR interview.

Patterson’s website for kids, called  Read Kiddo Read has reviews of books for kids from babies to young adults. Scroll on down to the bottom of the home page and read an opinion piece he did for CNN.com. Read Kiddo Read has always been on the Reading Sites We Love blog list on the right hand column of this page.

Jon Scieszka, author of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and the Time Warp Trio series, has a website devoted to getting boys to read called Guys Read. He has organized his recommendations into categories like, How to build stuff, Realistic kids in realistic situations and one sure to be a hit with my grandsons, At least one explosion.  Other categories include Series, Ghosts and Action/Adventure and several more. Scieszka includes comics (Gary Larson’s The Far Side comic books are prominently featured), graphic novels, magazines and audio books. You can listen to a 2005 NPR interview with Jon Scieszka talking about his website.