Your choice that is! For some time I’ve been meaning to ask you all:
What do you want to see reviewed?
I have so many ideas turning over in my mind, but the future is wide open, so share what you’re hoping to see.
Do you want…
- A specific theme or genre that you’ve been waiting for?
- Newbery winners? Printz winners? Honor books for either award? A selection of years or just the current ones?
- Any other books recommended by a specific library, book review or similar resource (include a link if you’d like to have me run down a specific list!)
- More minorities? Any specific ones (specific minorities or specific books welcome.)
- A specific book or series? Harry Potter? Divergent? Graceling?
- An author you’d like covered?
- Childhood favorites or classics you’ve been waiting to share with your own children? Ramona? Anne of Green Gables? Wrinkle in Time? Hardy Boys?
- More teacher commentary? Advanced chapter books for 3-4 graders? Below level books with sufficient interest for middle grades readers?
Let me know! It can be hard to track down the right books to make a theme, particularly if they’re not obvious, so tell me now and I’ll see what I can do!
Even though I’m not posting many book reviews while I’m taking a summer break, pop back in and see what good stuff I do have going on. And remember, if you haven’t already subscribed to Between These Pages in the blog reader of your choice, now is the time to do it! Make sure you don’t miss an update!
This summer, you almost have to go with #WeNeedDiverseBooks! There are lots of lists out there, but there can always be more. I don’t know that we need more information on Classics- adults love to reecommend those, and actual children are less thrilled with them. Whatever makes you happy. I spent a fun summer reading all the adult fiction by authors named Smith in my public l ibrary once!
You’re very much right about #WeNeedDiverseBooks!
My feeling on the classics is less my desire to reread them and sell them and more my rankling at how often they are suggested when they are not the right choice, so more from a dissuading standpoint! Sad to say it though.
Thanks for giving your two cents! Look for a month of children’s books authored by Smith next year (kidding. mostly.)
I would love to see a review of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Boat of Her Own Making and the next two books in the series (…Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, …Soared Above Fairyland…). My seven year old has read the first two of these books and proclaims that they are her favorite books ever, but I haven’t read them yet and I’m not sure whether the third book would be appropriate for her. Or even if the first two books are appropriate for her, but that ship has already sailed.
Is she into fairies in general? Fantasy? Would it help to have other recommendations of fairy books?
Ok, you asked for it, here goes! I would love suggestions for chapter books for advanced early-elementary readers (specifically, in our case reading at M level in school, sometimes chooses higher levels at home, e.g., I see you have pegged Franny K. Stein at P level). She has read and loved the Ivy & Bean series, and I would love to find more like that — engaging for her but really pretty high-quality from a literary perspective in my opinion. She has also read most of the Magic Treehouse series, loves them and reads them over and over again. I find those kind of formulaic (I think you share my opinion) but she does learn a lot of facts from them so that’s cool.
Also, this may not be the appropriate venue for this, but how do you deal with the “just-right” book concept as kids get older and/or more comfortable with literacy — that is, more intrepid and insistent about picking out books for themselves? I think the Magic Treehouse books are at about the right level for my daughter, but there are occasional words that she doesn’t know, and she tends to just “decide” how those words are pronounced (and then kind of over-confidently correct my pronunciation if I am reading aloud to her!). Not really sure how to deal with that issue!
Sarah,
I can definitely write about helping kids pick just right books, but part of the short answer is that I often had to upset and disappoint kids. It’s not a fun job for a teacher and I’d imagine far less pleasant as a parent. By third or fourth grade children were often pretty adamant that what they were reading was just-right regardless of whether or not it actually was.
The pronunciation correction is pretty funny. Is she old enough and computer savvy enough to benefit from an online dictionary? wordcentral.com is a great resource for kids and has a button you can press to hear how a word sounds. It might help if she heard the correction coming from a neutral authority rather than from you, you ignorant parent, you. ; )
My child is a young emergent reader. She’s 3.5 and reading Fancy Nancy, Henry and Mudge/Annie and Snowball/Mr. Putter and Tabby. So I guess what I would like to read about is what to read next, once we exhaust the Cynthia Rylant shelf at the library. 🙂 I’d also love recommendations on bringing some non-fiction into my young reader’s world.
Jen,
If she isn’t already into Mercy Watson, that’s a great next place to go. It’s about the same reading level as Henry and Mudge and ridiculously cute. It also has chapters so she’ll feel really grown up. If she hasn’t looked at Nate the Great yet, that would be about the same reading level as well. Non-fiction is a tricky one – there’s so much out there, some good, some not so hot, but that’s an excellent suggestion.
Did you ever review Captain Underpants? I did a search but didn’t find it.
Despite maligning the series all over the blog, I haven’t reviewed Captain Underpants yet. I should definitely take care of that!
Comic books for advanced young readers, please! My first grader loves anything in the form of a graphic novel, and this lead her to the Greek myth comics by George O’Connor, which is as far as I’m willing to go at this age (violence and scariness wise)–though she loved the ones she read. She really loves super heroes but I’m nervous about what she’ll find in there. And I definitely don’t want to read them myself! Thank you!!