52 weeks, 52 books

Oh look, I'm back...temporarily because I have to say, I am completely enjoying not being quite so wrapped with this fixation of square technology. I have, however, jumped back on today to talk briefly about our new year challenge.
This year, alongside our Pollyanna jar (I'll explain that another time), our family is undertaking a 52 weeks, 52 books challenge.
I've given each child a note book and we'll be creating a blog space, to document the 52 books that they read over the next year. Television has never played huge parts in our daily life (it is there, don't get me wrong, but it's not on on a daily basis), but I am trying to gently guide my boys in particular, away from their obsession with Beano annuals and back to the beauty and joy of reading novels.

Both my husband and I are avid readers, I was the desperation of an ex-boyfriend in my teen years, who laughed at my categorisation of my books with the Dewey decimal system (okay...that was theraputic letting you all know that!), I worked in a library as a teen and, much like yarn, I am content to sit for hours and stroke books or smell them (I refuse to own a kindle on this very guise, although I know that my days of denial are probably decreasing as the quantity of books one can take on holiday on a kindle far surpasses the need for smell once my suncream has blown up all over my books in my suitcase!) I am also well known for burning food as I'm engrossed in a chapter or falling asleep with a book on my face! So for both of us, books play a huge part in our family life and we have been reading to our children since the day they were born and still do read to all of them from a family reader as often as time allows.

I'm hoping that the blog will become inspiration for other parents who may have children at the same or similar ages, to find books that my children have read and reviewed in their own words. I know that the ages that my three are at, 8 (with a reading age of probably nearer 11), 10 (again, probably more like a 13 year old) and 12 (who was reading teen books at around 8), the contextual level for the challenge of the read are sometimes far apart.

This is no brag of their ability to read, merely that they found reading early and quickly moved - apart from my middle one, who hated reading from an early age, but loved being read to, and worried both of us. A proof in the largest of puddings that there is no need to fight with a youngling who is obviously confident and able in other things...just read to them, read to them, read to them and eventually one day they will pick up something and never stop reading from that point. The day his teacher told me his reading age, I fell off my chair and berated myself from doubting his own knowledge of what he needed to do, when. BUT, I digress!

However, confident and able readers that read above their age are not always at an advantage and, I return to my original wish for their blog, and that is that others may find inspiration for suitable books, with both context and level of interest for children who may well be avid readers, or even for those to whom reading is not yet wanting and where there maybe things to spark interest.

I will attach the link to this blog later in the week once I manage to get some blogspace for their words.
Thanks for reading ;-)

Here is the link to our new 52 books, 52 weeks challenge