Genre: Parenting
Basic Overview: I feel the title here is a little bit of a misnomer. The book is not much about getting your kids to read, but rather a resource to use to expose your child to a variety of quality literature. The author does an amazing job of creating lists based on age as well as topics. Is your child interested in science, learning about countries, princesses? Do they need help with the adjustment of a new sibling, or character development? What books should you read to your toddler? All these lists and many more are at your disposal in this book. I have loved this book enough to purchase it, but it would also be good to just borrow from the library.
Parts I Liked Best: Well, mostly I just like the lists. It is easy for me to find topics my children are interested and then check those books out from the library. I also really like the extra ideas the author gives, such as little crafts or snack ideas to go along with certain books. My favorite thing about this book is that as a school teacher, I thought I knew lots of books. The author has opened my eyes to many books I have never heard of. Esme Codell is also an educator, so the book is educationally sound.
If you need more incentive to read aloud with your child, she borrowed these sixteen ideas from author Jim Trealease about the benefits of reading:
1-Conditions the child to associate reading with pleasure, an association that is necessary in order to maintain reading as a lifelong activity.
2-Contributes to background knowledge for all other subject area, including science, history, geography, math, and social studies.
3-Provide the child with a reading role model.
4-Creates empathy toward other people, because literature values humanity and celebrates the human spirit and potential, offering insight into different lifestyles with recognizing universality.
5-Increases a child’s vocabulary and grammar, and has the potential to improve writing skills.
6-Improves a child’s probability of staying in school.
7-Improves future probability of employment and higher quality of life.
8-Increases life span by virtue of correlated education, employment, and higher quality of life.
9-Lowers probability of imprisonment.
10-Improves problem-solving and critical thinking skills that are fundamental and transferable to all other areas of learning.
11-Offers information.
12-Offers laughter and entertainment and an alternative to television.
13-Improves attention span.
14-Stimulates the imagination.
15-Nurtures emotional development and improves self-esteem.
16-Reading skills are accrued skills that are bound to improve over time…a countdown to academic success. (How to Get Your Child to Love
How This Book Made an Impact In My Life, Especially as a Mother: Sometimes, when selecting books at the library for my children, we make random selections and are then disappointed with the results. There are so many wonderful children’s books and my reading time is precious. I want to be sure we are not just reading the same old books and are reading quality books. I want books that bring up interesting topics, new vocabulary and peak my children’s interests.