Family Reading Time

My two favorite times of the day...one instrumental practice...our son with his violin and our daughter with her cello and current fave...percussion (ee gads!) and second favorite... family reading time.   Yep, we are quite proud of our continued focus on reading as a family even with a 13 and a 11 year old.

Here are our latest reading pleasures...

With my 5th grade daughter-



Every night my husband and I trade off reading with either our son or daughter.  When they were younger, we would read one book all together, but interest levels have changed greatly so now the split.  The old days of all fitting in the queen size bed have ended ) :  Reading time with my daughter tends to swing toward realistic fiction and a picture book here and there (which we both gobble up like turkeys).  The latest book is actually a historical fiction from the great Christopher Paul Curtis.   This summer, on one of our many road trips, we listened to The Watsons Go To Birmingham and loved it.  So, when I saw the new title, I knew we had to read it.  It was convenient that we had just finished One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia which also shares the history of African Americans.  in Paul's latest masterpiece, we enjoyed the smart, feisty female protagonist, Deza and her dramatic life during the turbulent 1930's.  My daughter and I found ourselves not only drawing some parallels between the 1960's of  One Crazy Summer but also with current times.  Overall, a splendid book and definitely one to be shared.

Goodreads Summary:

“We are a family on a journey to a place called wonderful” is the motto of Deza Malone’s family.

Deza is the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana, singled out by teachers for a special path in life. But the Great Depression hit Gary hard, and there are no jobs for black men. When her beloved father leaves to find work, Deza, Mother, and her older brother Jimmie go in search of him, and end up in a Hooverville outside Flint, Michigan. Jimmie’s beautiful voice inspires him to leave the camp to be a performer, while Deza and Mother find a new home, and cling to the hope that they will find Father.

The twists and turns of their story reveal the devastation of the Depression and prove that Deza truly is the Mighty Miss Malone.

http://youtu.be/mPj99VRSlAY

With my 7th grade son-



The darker, the drearier, the better when it comes to my son's fascination with dystopian literature.  In our latest shared gloomy read, The Scorpio Races takes us across the ocean to a Celtic island where an annual race with Water Horses, not the typical gentle, regal mammal, but a vicious, aggressive beast.  This unique tale is set to become a movie in 2015.

Goodreads summary-

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

Beautiful, artistic book trailer

http://youtu.be/tojCn2Y41ig