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On last week’s episode of Mom and Dad Are Fighting,
Slate’s parenting podcast, I mentioned that this summer I’ve given my
daughter Lyra a 100-book reading list. Lyra’s an avid reader who has
long sped through books,
but she’s been reading less and less as she moves into
adolescence—shifting her attention to the internet, to her own writing,
and to games. While there are a lot of great things about all those
distractions, I didn’t want her to lose touch with the excitement of
finding and loving a new book. So I made up this list and told her the
only thing I require of her this summer is that she needs to read 25 of
them. (So far she’s read about 15.)
The list is made up of a mix of classics and contemporary books, short stories and novels, plays and comics, literature and trash. Some of them are books I loved dearly when I was 14...
I’m posting the list here in case it’s useful to other parents of other advanced teenage readers. If you try a similar stunt some summer, you should adapt the list so it includes books that are important to you and that seem like they might appeal to your kid. And you should definitely include some wild pie-in-the-sky reward should your child read all 100. Lyra’s gotten me to agree that I’ll take her to Disneyland if she pulls that off. She thinks I hope I don’t have to do it—but of course, I really hope I do.
Read more...The list is made up of a mix of classics and contemporary books, short stories and novels, plays and comics, literature and trash. Some of them are books I loved dearly when I was 14...
I’m posting the list here in case it’s useful to other parents of other advanced teenage readers. If you try a similar stunt some summer, you should adapt the list so it includes books that are important to you and that seem like they might appeal to your kid. And you should definitely include some wild pie-in-the-sky reward should your child read all 100. Lyra’s gotten me to agree that I’ll take her to Disneyland if she pulls that off. She thinks I hope I don’t have to do it—but of course, I really hope I do.
Source: Slate
