Today’s blog post goes in the “My Little Girl’s Growing Up *sniff sniff*” category…
The other day, Julia was talking with our next-door neighbor friend, M., a worldly first grader, about the “Magic Tree House” books that the kindergarten teachers read to the kids. M. rhapsodized about some MTH titles that her dad had bought for her, books that Julia thought sounded very interesting.
Lo and behold, when I came home the next day, Shannon had dug out some Magic Tree House books that a friend had passed down to us after her son outgrew them. (Thanks, A.E.!) Being the hyperliterate sort, Julia immediately started in on them; being the eager imitator, Vivi was happy to listen too. So far, Julia prefers to have us read them to her, even though the books are simple and straightforward enough that she could (mostly) read them on her own.
This is a-okay with me, since the books are lots of fun. The chapters are take no longer than a few minutes to read, and unlike many kids’ books, the prose is actually easy to read aloud. And the stories are juuuuust right – interesting, historical, exciting, not too scary. I didn’t expect to be reading the legendary “chapter books” already, but I like it.
I totally relate to this. When my daughter started reading chapter books that was a wake-up call that she was growing up. I’m giving away all of her picture books to my friend’s five year-old daughter. I’m glad she’ll enjoy them :}. But at least my daughter, now ten, is reading great friendship stories like Sewing a Friendship, which is a fun little story about learning how to get along with others and being helpful. I love these types of books for our young ladies.