What We're Reading Lately

I am always interested to hear about good books, so I thought I'd share what my kids are into lately.

Kai's favorites are "Heads" and "Tails" by Matthew Van Fleet, "Biscuit" by Alyssa Satin Capuculli, and "My First Wild Animals" by Bettina Paterson (which I don't have a picture of). He loves these books almost to the point of exclusion.

Kai likes the Van Fleet books because of all the fabulous illustrations, textures, and moving parts. He loves the Biscuit book because it has many repetitions of "Woof! Woof!"

Jack is not picky, but his current favorite is "The Greedy Python," by Richard Buckley (illustrated by Eric Carle).

Jack likes this book because it's pretty darn funny. I happen to agree and it's one of my current favorites as well. It helps that it's fairly new so I've *only* read it 100 or so times.

Alexander is working his way through two chapter books concurrently, a habit he could have only picked up from his father. I usually have him read one chapter aloud and then I'll read him one chapter. He is reading a Star Wars book, "The Fight for Survival," and an A to Z Mysteries book, "The Missing Mummy." (No, you cannot click to look inside but I am too lazy to look for different pictures!)

The Star Wars book has some pretty challenging vocabulary for a kindergartner, but Alexander pushes through because he is so interested in the story. And just when I'll start to worry that it's going over his head due to the vocabulary, he'll start into one of those, "Mom, do you remember in my Boba Fett book when...." and perfectly describe a scene we'd read several days before. The mystery book is one that he picked up at the book fair and is better matched to his actual reading level.

What are you and/or your kids reading lately?

Book Recommendation

This is totally random, given that I typically write about my kids, or maybe some household stuff. But as I've said before, I AM the boss here, and so I thought I'd share a book recommendation. ;)

Sometimes I lose perspective. This book gave me some back. It was a totally random pick in the library the other day and I can't get it off my mind since I read it in one sitting.

"Our America" by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman with Davis Isay

This is actually mostly a transcript of audio recordings made by two boys, once in 1993 and once in 1996. The boys were ages 13 and then 16. They were both born within a year of me, which made me sort of connect with them more. They were growing up in/near the projects in Chicago. The first section is called Ghetto 101 and just sort of details their every day life for one week. The 1996 section is them interviewing people in the neighborhood about a recent crime that got national attention- when two boys, ages 10 and 11, dropped a 5 year old boy out of a 14th story window, killing him. LeAlan and Lloyd interview the victim's family, neighbors, and family members of the perpetrators.

Originally, the audio tapes were used to create two radio documentaries, which won several awards.