Some months ago, our 7 year old grandson, Kai, told me that the only books in which he was interested were information books. He is a reader, but information books don’t get one caught up in a story with the joy of “not being able to put down a book.” I wanted him to learn about people, emotions, relationships, imagination and all the insight into the human experience that reading fiction can bring.
Well…I took his statement as a personal challenge and pledged to find a chapter series on which he would get hooked.
I started with the Magic Tree House books which worked pretty well, but certainly were still “information” books.
Then I tried the series of books about Bunnicula, The Vampire Bunny. They were okay.
Then I bought Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and pledged to read it aloud to him whenever we were together. It took several weeks, but BINGO! It worked and he was very proud to show me the next Harry Potter book he checked out from his school library.
Now to breaking the rules…
Part of the fun with being with Gigi and PopPop is that we don’t follow all the rules when we are together. Last September our son and daughter-in-law were out of town for a week. In our anticipation of the time Kai and I were going to be together, we made BIG plans to do something he was never allowed to do.
On that Saturday night Kai and I stayed up until midnight watching Star Wars movies. We ate all the ice cream he wanted and made a pact that he wouldn’t tell his parents. (Ha)
It wasn’t 3 minutes after they arrived home before he told him of our adventure.
A couple of weeks ago, he was here for a sleepover and I stayed up with him until midnight to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We ate ice cream with sprinkles and plenty of Oreo cookies.
If you follow all the rules, you miss out on a bunch of fun.
Best in parenting,
Ginny Hacker, director
