Reading Ideas

I came across a couple of interesting articles this morning. The first is from the  October 3, 2016  The New Yorker, What Makes A Children's Book Good? by Adam Gidwitz. He is the author of The Inquisitor's Tale Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog. If you have middle-grade age readers, this is a rollicking, medieval and timely story. Gidwitz looks at the criteria that has been used to make judgments about the worth of children's books. Should the judgment be about content or results?

The Sonoma County Library has thirteen copies. The AR is 4.5 and is worth 11 points.

The second article is from Brightly by Jean Reagan, the author of How To Babysit A Grandma and How To Babysit A Grandpa: How to Make Reading Fun: 25 Ideas Kids Will Love. One idea I particularly love is to give kids Calvin and Hobbes books. Bill Watterson channeled  kid's  imagination and emotions perfectly. Another great idea that worked with my oldest grandson is to read aloud a book just to the exciting part. More often than not, even a reluctant reader will want to finish the book. Another great idea is using audiobooks. The same grandson as above just needed the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to hook him on the whole series (Jim Dale is a magnificent narrator. He had over 100 distinct voices for the many characters over the seven books. Even if your kids read the books, listening to them is a real treat).

The Sonoma County Library has seven  copies of How to Babysit a Grandma and six copies of How to Babysit a Grandpa. The AR for the Grandma book is 3.0 and the Grandpa book is 2.4.