Shhhh, we're reading...

When I was little, I was a crazy reader. I read crazy early and crazy often.

Blessedly, it would appear that in addition to passing on my just regular crazy genes to my sons, I also passed along my crazy reading genes!

Will followed in Clyde's footsteps and started independently reading when he was three. Last summer his reading really took off; he kept surprising us by sitting down with a brand new picture book to read all the way through.

This spring (right around his birthday) he entered the magical world of chapter books! His favorite is to find a Junie B. Jones book or Horrible Harry book that Clyde's already read. My favorite is to take a picture whenever I stumble upon him reading :).

Clyde's crazy reading won him an award at school:

Accelerated Reader is a program where kids read books, take a comprehension quiz, and then are awarded points based on the book's difficulty. Clyde scored the most points in the entire first grade.

 

We were able to attend the awards ceremony, so I made a video of Clyde's name being announced. Be sure to listen for Will's proud, "Clyde Izatt? That's my brother!" 

Just to emphasize how much crazy reading Clyde Monster did, let's highlight the numbers. The second place reader in first grade (the adorable Danika, of my sweet little friends in Clyde's class) got 39.2 points - so Clyde scored at least 30 points ahead of anyone in his grade. The second place reader in second grade scored 72.9 points - so Clyde was less than three points behind him! Craziness.

Here's a picture of most of the AR award winners:

Doesn't Clyde look hilarious in that line-up?

And here's Will watching all the awards action from atop a folding chair. Thankfully we had the foresight to leave Jackers with a friend (thank you Em!!).

What with all this recent reading action in the house, I decided to hop on the bandwagon. I remembered seeing that E.L. Konigsburg passed away in April, which made me a bit nostalgic for her amazing book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I found it at the library, and picked up Konigsburg's other Newbery Medal book, The View from Saturday, at the same time. I knew I had read it, but couldn't remember the story very well.

And of course they were both brilliant, although 'Saturday' was probably my favorite of the two.

I was at my mom's house the next week so I decided to peruse her shelves of Newbery Medal winners, and she highly recommended these Richard Peck books:

A Long Way from Chicago was a Newbery Honor book and its sequel, A Year Down Yonder, won the Newbery Medal. The third book, A Season of Gifts, completes the series.

And OH MY, they were so good. I laughed and cried. And then cried and laughed. Such amazing characters. Such well thought out plotlines. Such an interesting setting.

As for the remaining two members of our Izatt family, Chuck recently read a book. I think it was about World War II. That's an educated guess, as World War II books are really the only variety he reads. (I have high hopes for getting him to read Harry Potter someday. Probably all of us as a family...)

Jack, on the other hand, seems perfectly content to watch Taylor Swift's '22' on youtube repeatedly. Like, he falls asleep watching it most nights. Maybe I'll switch it to one where the lyrics are on screen and the first words he reads can be "It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters"....

Works for me! 

(Just as long as he quits taking the 'feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight' line so. damn. literally...)