Reading in the Summertime

None of my boys are readers, not even Mike. Mike, when he reads, reads technical manuals or magazines about the ski area industry. Jordan reads ads. Ian reads skateboarding catalogs. So when I implemented the "Reading Every Night in Our House" mandate, Ian informed me that I had ruined in his life. Then he said, "Okay fine, but I'm only reading "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, those are the only books I like."

"What if I find a book just like that?"

"No, you'll never find another book like that." and with that he stomped off to ponder the destiny of  a ruined life. (On a side note, if you haven't ruined your teen's life then you aren't doing a good job parenting.)

Then I found "Accidental Genius" which is about a 14 year old boy whose parents AND older sister ruin his life, plus it has pictures running throughout it, like a graphic novel, like "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." I'm reading it out-loud to him and I'm not supposed to say ANYTHING to his friends about ANY of this.

I read "The Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie out loud to him last winter, which also has graphics running throughout it, and he loved it, but don't tell ANYONE about that.

I raised my boys to read. I was the mother who took her boys to all the story-times at the libraries, always bought books for presents, read to them every night (Mike not too often - he'd fall asleep halfway through the story plus he didn't do the voices as well as I did), enrolled them in the library summer reading programs, I did everything right (for once) but Ian and Jordan just don't read. I think it's a boy thing. There are not a lot of books written for boys by boys and, let's face it, reading is not an active activity.

If you could find books that literally came alive, like if you have a car chase scene, there are miniature cars that appear and chase each other around the living room, then boys might read. Or if you're reading  "The Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen and when he has to eat a raw turtle egg, an egg actually appears and the boys have to eat it before they can read anymore, then boys might read. But other than that, it's hard to get them to read.

There are a few boys in our library that read a lot and Ian has classified them as "weird." Okay, maybe there are a little...eccentric, but they're nice kids, I think. Ian just rolls his eyes. "Fine, but those weird kids are the ones owning companies like Microsoft." "Whatever, they can't even skateboard." Ian's latest ambition is to be a professional skateboarder. You'd think someone would capitalize on this craze and write books about professional skateboarders, preferably with an ending that has the main character realizing he can't make it as a professional skateboarder and going to college and getting a degree and getting a real job, one that makes money and doesn't involve baggy pants.

But I'm going to keep reading out loud every night for thirty minutes and see what happens. Maybe when Ian and Jordan are forty they'll go to the library and check out books, not DVDs and music videos. Maybe.