Chapter books H. & I have read

[DadDude]

I posted our latest "completely read" list here: http://larrysanger.org/2011/03/chapter-books-h-and-i-read/  I'd post it here as well, but it would take a long time to format it properly.

[rd]

Always a pleasure to read your booklists and progress with H.  I like that you have also covered a broad range of subjects, from history, fantasy to poetry.  Would like to know do you buy, borrow or read these books as ebooks as some original classics are available electronically.  I would also like to expose my son to some of these titles in the future but the cost of buying all these books would add up.  Thank you for sharing.

[TracyR4]

Wow. You can find many of those titles in the library. I buy a book if its something we've enjoyed reading.

Not sure at what level your son is reading but I know for sure he'd love Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfield. I recommend it to anyone who has boys, or girls that love mystery stories. The book is excellent from the first page to the last. Its a page turner and it kept me reading that's for certain. There's also a sequal to it called the Roman Ransom. Even if he isn't able to read it at the moment its a great dad and son read aloud.

You'd also like the homeschooling curriculum Sonlight (www.sonlight.com)  ( if you don't use it already). I don't use the curriculum but their book lists in their catalog is out of this world. We already have many books on your list at home already. I like the Classic Starts books for the classics like Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea etc.  They are great as they don't dumb down the literature, but make the books easier for younger children to read.

[DadDude]

@rd, we're reading more and more electronically lately (finished an e-copy of The Iron Giant a few days ago which H. insisted on reading to me, read two versions of Alice (the cool app...you'll probably know what I'm talking about if you have an iDevice), assorted shorter books, and a few others.  We really like this because it's possible to look up word meanings quickly.  But lately we've been reading with the iPad next to the chair and I use the dictionary to look things up--he insists that I do this now, for any word he's not sure of.

However, to answer your question, we buy 95% of our books, I'd say.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend this--I mean, it's kind of an expensive hobby, buying all these books, and of course the library is cheaper.  But owning the books means H. can pick them up again, whichever he wants, as long after we've read it as he likes.  We're under no pressure to renew or return the book if we want to reread it, and we can get a lot of books and then save them for months afterward (which we do all the time).  Having all the books we've read visible in several bookshelves is also neat--I'm sure it gives us a sense of accomplishment.

Some of the books aren't available at our local library (not even by library loan), because they come from the U.K.  This applies to many of the Usborne Young Reading books, which are simply wonderful.  Not everything Usborne comes out with is so fantastic, but this series is really phenomenal.  They know just how to combine excellent storytelling (even about history) with excellent illustration.  I've discovered that not even Amazon has all of these available.  I've had to order them from http://www.bookdepository.com/ (in the U.K.).  This is fine with me because I've discovered that their prices are lower than Amazon's, and they ship to the U.S. for free regardless of how big your order is.

Also, while I appreciate the compliment about the broad range of subjects, this list actually represents half of what we've read, or maybe less.  Most of what we read, over the past four years, was nonfiction and picture books.  We've read a lot of nonfiction, mostly science but actually a very wide variety of other stuff.  He's obviously learned a lot from what he's read, but aside from his reading ability and vocabulary, I'm not sure how much has sunk in.  Sometimes he surprises me with what he remembers, but just as often he's forgotten something.  I figure that even if he mostly forgets some book, it still trains his mind and makes it easier to absorb the information with better retention later on.

I was looking over my list again and I discovered that I hadn't updated several entries.  I'll have to do so.

[Maquenzie]

I'm curious how you do it all.   

Does H go to school away from home? Who initiates reading usually? What was H's first chapter book and how old was he? And do you do reading routinely or is reading time always random?

I have a similarly aged child (I think...mine is 4 years 3 months), and I cannot imagine having read that much!

I am also impressed with Usborne books in general. We're lucky enough to have a local bookseller. 

[DadDude]

@Maquenzie - most of the reading we did for this list (excluding the history, which until last week we never did at bedtime) we did at bedtime.  We have usually spent 45 minutes, or so, reading before bed.  This is admittedly longer than some might do, but you can read a lot even with 30 minutes at bedtime.  It's totally routine, just a habit we got into shortly before H.'s third birthday, and this, two years later, is the result.  Now H. virtually never goes to sleep without plenty of reading in advance.

H. doesn't go to school away from home at all.  For this it helps a lot that I work from home and am H.'s main teacher.  The rest of the reading I have done with him during mealtimes.  I spend about 75% of the time H. is at the table during mealtimes reading to him.  His Mama helped a great deal by helping him eat, although now, I don't think we read quite as much because he's more busy now feeding himself.  She could not have fed him and read to him at the same time.  So it has been (and still is) totally a team effort.  In addition, with increasing regularity we've been doing stuff after breakfast.  (These days it is two of the following four options: math, penmanship, memorization, and typing.  Theoretically, this doesn't take more than a half hour...actually, sometimes it takes longer.  Also, we study Latin 4-5 days a week after naptime (10-15 minutes).  Obviously this all takes a significant time investment from me--well, it has become my hobby.  I used to play a lot more fiddle.  :-)

H.'s first chapter book was Winnie-the-Pooh, but I think we should have done some simpler chapter books first.  I didn't know, at the time, that there are some simpler chapter books.  We did this in small doses at mealtime when he was two.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think the first chapter book we read at bedtime, starting just before his third birthday, was Stuart Little, which to my surprise was pretty accessible to him.  E. B. White's two other novels are the same way, though of course I had to explain some vocabulary (which I always do, but as briefly as possible).

[aangeles]

Hi DadDude,

I know this is an old thread; I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to compile this list and sharing it with us. It was really helpful, particularly for me as I am not a native English speaker and did not grow up in an English environment so a lot of what you would consider classics for kids I would not even have thought of reading to my daughter. It was also through your list that I was introduced to the excellent Usborne Illustrated series of books, which have become all-time favorites in our house. We have now read through almost everything on your list (and then some!), and Ella seems to have roughly the same taste in books as H. So I was wondering if you have an updated list of what you and H have been reading since you wrote this, and if you would share it with us again.

Thanks again!

[DadDude]

I'd like to update the list. We've read a LOT of stuff since I last updated it.

Here are a few things that might not be on that old list:

Bond, Michael. A Bear Called Paddington. 5.7 Lightweight, fun, enjoyable to H., not great literature.
Cleary, Beverly.  All the Ralph S. Mouse books; all the Henry Huggins books; Socks.
De Jong, Meindert.  The House of Sixty Fathers. 5.5 - Almost finished with this. Pretty dark, and "literary," but actually a nice story with some very emotional moments.
Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  5.9 - H. hugely enjoyed this.
Dahl, Roald. Matilda. Watched the movie (which was really good!), then quickly read and enjoyed the book.
D’Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar P. D’Aulaire’s Norse Gods and Giants. Quite enjoyable. Good intro to Norse myth.
Lewis, C.S.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. 6.1.
Lewis, C.S.  The Magician’s Nephew.  5.6.  More enjoyable than LWW.
Lewis, C.S.  The Horse and His Boy.
McCaughrean, Geraldine.  Gilgamesh the Hero.  5.0.  Surprisingly good adaptation in every way.
Travers, P. L. Mary Poppins. 6.1 Not as great as its reputation. Entertaining, but a little weird. Movie is better.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls.  On the Banks of Plum Creek. 5.2 Fantastic book, like the others.

More out of order:
Daewood, N. J. Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights. Rather good, but not easy.
Brooks, Walter R. Freddie the Detective. H. liked it a lot. I didn’t read it so I can’t report any more!
Grahame, Kenneth. The Reluctant Dragon.  4.4 – A dragon turns out to be a pacifist, St. George doesn’t want to kill him. Must appeal more to eccentric English types than us.
Hardy Boys series – first four. H. really ate these up, loved them, made him all excited about detective work.
The Spiderwick Chronicles series, Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles series
MacDonald, Betsy. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. 4.5 Moralistic but in a way that is highly entertaining to kids. H. liked these a lot.
MacDonald, Betsy. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic.
Selden, George. The Cricket In Times Square. 5.9. – H. liked it well enough but probably not his favorite. Very “literary”; OK.
Burgess, Thornton. The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad or similar, one or two of them. This long series was my dad’s favorite growing up. H. tolerated it. No opinion myself as I still haven’t read them!
Flat Stanley series, most if not all of them. Very lightweight, silly, likeable to H., not great literature, but fine.
Sherlock Holmes, Baskervilles & collected tales, from Stepping Stones (I think?) and also Great Illustrated Classics. (There have been a number of other adaptations he’s tackled but I’m not keeping track of those anymore.)
Who Was Queen Elizabeth? and Who Was Ferdinand Magellan? and several more in the series. Recommended. Maybe not the very best, but decent and easy to read.
Many Basher books like The Periodic Table
Harry Potter #1 and #2 – at age 5, he lost interest halfway through #3

I read about half of those books to H. The rest he read himself. Right now he prefers nonfiction but is doing Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island, the originals, with a dictionary, because I ask, although he doesn't seem to mind too much and even enjoys them, though they are definitely challenging.

This is not at all a complete list, the room where the chapter books are is a mess. Also, we've read parts of many others, or listened to them but didn't finish reading them; but I'm not including them here.

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