Currently reading...

I thought I'd mention a few books my sons have been enjoying this week. First I must state that I've NOT read the books myself, so I cannot guarantee anything about their contents.

My sons generally like funny books and they've enjoyed reading "The Amazing Adventures of Charlie Small" these are quick, easy, fun reads.

R found "Cosmic" by Frank Cotrell Boyce hilarious. Basically it is about a very tall boy who can fool people into thinking he is an adult, and who somehow ends up in space. It is written in a very informal, conversational style.

"Toby Alone" is a totally different book, but it seems to have an interesting, complex plot centering around motives for conflicts, as far as I can gather.

They also read Allan Ahlberg's "The Boyhood of Burglar Bill" which is about boys getting together a football team, in a tough area in the 1950s. This is not their usual type of read.

I'm trying to encourage the boys to read books outside of their usual "comfort zone", of silly hilarity, or boys adventure detectives. I put it to them that unless they read books that step outside of their favourite genres they won't be able to develop skills of criticism. How can they expect to make judgements concerning what makes a good plot, strong characters etc, if they haven't experienced a wider range? I read to them outside of these limits, of course, but they need to be able to do this themselves too. (Why do they "need" to do this? Well, they like reading anyway, and if they don't broaden their range they'll just have to reread books all the time.)

As for Ia, she is currently reading the Little Animal Ark seies by Lucy Daniels, a simpler version of the popular Animal Ark series. She is also reading the Thomas the Tank Engine My Story Library series.