I am a big fan of boredom. Not my own, but for my boys. They come to me whining that they are bored, I offer to entertain them with some cleaning projects, and they disappear into their playroom and magically find something to do.
I walked in on them a few days ago and Duke was trying to teach Imp how to play All Fives dominoes. Duke loves math and he loves playing this game. But
he found it a bit challenging to play with Imp since Imp can't really add that high. So when it was Imp's turn, Duke would look at the board and say "Do you have a domino with a three or six?". If Imp had one, Duke would tell him where to place it and then Duke would do the math to calculate his points.
Of course Imp won. Duke took it pretty well.
I am homeschooling Duke and he loves math. He is really doing well on his reading, but he doesn't have confidence. He will read whatever I assign him, but he won't pick up a book and read it for pleasure. We check out simple books that are his reading level and I assure him he doesn't have to know all of the words, but he balks reading unless it is for school. This makes me sad, because reading, for me, is a great boredom-buster.
I read several great books about raising kids (Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys
and Bringing Up Geeks: How to Protect Your Kid's Childhood in a Grow-Up-Too-Fast World
) and in one of them they mention that the reason boys read with less pleasure than girls is because 1) They don't see their fathers read as much, so they think reading is more for girls and 2) Many books out there aren't really fun for boys to read.Yesterday I picked up The Children's Book of Heroes
and decided to read a "scary" story in there for Halloween. I gathered the boys on the couch and read the story about Theseus and the Minotaur. The pictures and the story are really frightening since it involves this great beast with a human body, head of a bull, and tiger teeth chasing people around in a dark maze trying to eat them.Scary stuff, and the boys sat there not moving, eyes shining in excitement. When we finished Imp asked a few of his usual unrelated questions and then the boys begged for more scary stories. I ran over to the book cases and searched the books and found no scary children books. Sure, I have tons of books on construction vehicles, most of the children classics like Wizard of Oz and Winnie the Pooh, nature books, etc.; but nothing really scary other than classic fairy tales. I love reading these to the boys, especially because they aren't the Disney sanitized versions. But there is no way Duke can read them on his own yet.
When I was growing up I loved mysteries and scary books. I was and am an avid reader and I grew up reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz and every scary book I could find out there. One of my favorite children picture books when I was Duke's age involved a brave knight? who was trying to save a princess? whose father was an evil (or picky) King. I am hazy on the details, but one of the illustrations showed bloody heads stuck on top of spikes around a castle. I think they were from men who tried to win the hand of the evil King's daughter and didn't succeed.
Yes, this sounds really gory for a picture book, but I can't tell you how often I checked it out. The book was a story about good versus evil, and the good guy won at the end. And it was an exciting scary read. I wish I could find a copy, but I am sure they have all been burned by the PC book police. Bloody heads on stakes have been replaced with princesses, let girls be girls and boys be girls, farts and burps, ads for Disney and Pixar, and scary political messages about global warming.
To this day I love a good thriller/mystery/horror book. So why haven't I stocked the boy's bookshelves with exciting kid books that Duke might actually pick up and read on his own? Simple, I don't know what to buy.
So I wanted to ask you what kid books have excited a young boy (1st grade) in your life? I want books that he can read without much effort, but ones that will excite him. They don't have to be classics, they just have to be enjoyable. I would love to see him sitting on his couch reading a book just for fun.
If you have a book suggestion, please post it in the comments. I know there are so many new books out there and I would love some suggestions of your top choices that will make Duke's eyes glow with excitment. I want my boys to feel the same passion for reading that I have. Bloody heads on stake are not necessary of course, but would be a cool idea for Halloween reading. ;-)
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