If You’re Wondering What to Read Next, Look No Further! (Part 2 of 2)
Friends! If I didn’t load you up with enough book ideas last week, fear not! I’ve got a few more. These are geared for families…
Our first book is a stand alone, but the second one leads to the third and the author of the third happens to be an endorser for our first selection. (Who’s on first?) Stay tuned…
I confess I bought this first book purely from the cover as I’m obsessed with penguins:
I wanted to jump in the cover, a la Mary Poppins and the chalk drawing in the sidewalk, and follow the Pied Piper, girl, and penguin, also toting a book along.
“Most engagingly conversational” would be my assessment of Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone’s writing. I love the book because it does two things for the reader:
1 – It shows you why the authors want their book club participants to not just merely read their selections on the surface. They help you become detectives.
2 – The book also helps you should you be considering starting a book club. You’ll receive all kinds of ideas and advice. Clearly the Goldstones are experienced and love every single second of their time doing this!
Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook (which we’ll get to in a minute), said of Deconstructing Penguins, “Not just the single best book on leading a book discussion group, it is also about how to dig a tunnel into the heart of a book. In my ideal world, every reading teacher would trash that boring classroom text and adopt this book as a curriculum bible.”
The Gladstones say,
Early into the book, we get to see the Gladstones in action with parents and their children who’ve come to their book club. Even more fun, the first book they discuss is none other than Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Simply delightful!
Our second book is by a lovely author I learned about from one of Ann Voskamp’s blogposts. She raved about Sarah Mackenzie who founded the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. Sarah’s book is called The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids.
Sarah and her husband, Andrew, live in Spokane, Washington with their six kids, so trust me, she knows what she’s talking about in this book!!! We get to learn from her experiments with her own children and see firsthand how reading aloud blessed and hugely benefited their whole family. Her strong, Christian faith overflows in her writing too which is an added bonus.
The book’s divided into three parts. We watch the experiment unfold, we learn how to ask compelling questions, how to create a book club culture in your own home, etc. and finally we gain huge lists of recommended books, their synopses, all for certain ages. Invaluable!
Finally, the last two books are by the same author. One happens to be one of a gazillion books my own Mother gave to me. The author is Jim Trelease and the book Mother gave me is Hey! Listen to This: Stories to Read Aloud. (Notice it says “edited by Jim Trelease.”)
It includes books in categories, sometimes only excerpts from novels, causing you to want to run out and find the entire book. He introduces authors, many times telling stories of their upbringing or why they began to write, all of which is as interesting as the actual excerpt he includes! Categories include: Tell Me a Story!, Tales from Long Ago, School Days, Food for Thought, etc. (There are eight more!)
Jim Trelease is best known for his The Read -Aloud Handbook: Includes a Giant Treasury of Great Read-Aloud Books. (I have the 7th edition, which says, “Now completely revised and updated.”)
This book is so thorough. From convincing statistics in the beginning to over a hundred pages of pure lists of books, age appropriated, succinct synopses, it’s easy to see why Sarah Mackenzie flipped over it and adopted Jim’s strategies immediately.
Pulling these four books out again has renewed my enthusiasm for reading to our grandchildren. I’d totally forgotten that the book my Mother gave me is autographed by Jim Trelease and dated 4-23-96, so John Jr. would’ve been ten years old by then. She must’ve gotten to hear him speak somewhere and had him sign it. I wish I’d paid closer attention back then!
I’ll stop before throwing any more book suggestions at you (this is the end of Part 2!), before you throw some books at me! Regardless, you cannot go wrong with any of these and your friends and family will thank you for your efforts.
Psalm 127:3 reminds us, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him.” (NIV)
’Til next time!
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