Summer Reading

"Ordinary Time" Guest Blogger...


Watching my 9 year old daughter, P., carry a stack of books outside to read one afternoon, made me think about how all of us spend a good chunk of our summer.  As far as our family is concerned, summer was designed for lots and lots of reading.  While we all read a lot any time of year, the lack of structure activities during summer allows for larger, uninterrupted chunks of reading time.

So what are we all reading this summer?  My husband reads to our two 7 year old boys every night.  So far this summer they have read one of the Freddy the Pig books by Walter Brooks, The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit, and they are currently in the middle of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  After lunch, while everyone is still at the table, we have a family read aloud time.  We have just finished reading The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong, but I am still deciding what we are going to tackle next.  We try to read books that are somewhat challenging in the use of language.  Often they are not something the younger children would ever be able to read by themselves, but are able to understand when read aloud.  We can also help clarify what is happening in the story if we sense there is some confusion.

As far as individual reading, I won’t list all the books everyone has read, but will highlight some of the more interesting selections.  B. our 15 year old son is in the middle of several books.  He is very interested in the Civil War and has been reading The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.  We have had some interesting dinner table discussion as a result.  He is also slowly working his way through The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, which is the first of her Lymond Chronicles.  She writes really well done historical fiction which is for adults.  I love having my older children able to read adult level books because it gives me more people to discuss books with.  (As a whole, we don’t encourage our children to read young adult fiction.  Much of it is not very well written and is about things that do not elevate our children’s thinking.  We would rather they spend their time on worthwhile adult literature.)

P., the above-mentioned 9 year old, has really taken off with her reading this summer.  She discovered a stash of old Camp Fire Girls books that I had forgotten about and is working her way through them.  They are a lot of fun since they were written in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s.  She is finding it very interesting to see what life was like for girls a hundred years ago.

Of course, the adults do some reading, too.  My husband, J., is currently reading the new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  Bonhoeffer:  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.  He is thoroughly enjoying it.  I just finished reading, Keeping House:  The Litany of Everyday Life by Margaret Kim Peterson.  I loved it.  I loved it so much I’m in that difficult between books state where I want the one I just finished to continue and can’t find a new one which is as satisfying.  So I need a book!  (I’m still nursing my twin girls, so I really need a book.)  What have all you been reading this summer?  Anything good?  Anything you want to recommend?  I’m desperate!


~"E."

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