REBLOG: Why Blog?

Someone asked me, why blog?  Why do you blog if no one reads it?

There are two answers to this...

One, because I have 13 followers for the blog itself and 100+ member in the Overcoming being Overwhelmed group on Facebook. So while I guess I am not the most popular blog out there, I get read (even if its only by mostly my family and friends...Thank you btw!).

Two, I've been writing since I was in grade school. Poetry, short stories, diaries... It is something I need to do.  Sometimes it is just to clear my head.  Other times I simply have something I want to say or a funny story to share. When HistoryBoy was little, I wrote short stories for him about my childhood and my dog Ginger, most of which actually featured my little brother, Engineer.  (Maybe I should share those stories. LOL).

The long and the short of is I like to write, sometimes LOVE it, and sometimes simply have to. Without this particular media, I would be simply publishing my ideas in my journal possibly sharing with some friends. This allows me to share with a lot more people, and if anyone gets something out of it, if I help even one person, then that's AWESOME.

More Reading...

As many of you know, HistoryBoy has never been a fan of fiction , until recently (The Hard Road to Reading).  He is now devouring books.  I couldn't be prouder. He seems to especially love fantasy books.  He is on Book 3 of Percy Jackson, and Book 4 of Guardians of the Ga'Hooole.  He is itchy to start the Hunger Games. I told him reading 2 books at once is enough, lol.  

To illustrate my point, HistoryBoy actually wrote in an essay about himself...

"My reading is great and getting better as time goes on. I will be on top of my game and beat the forty book challenge. They should make it a sixty book challenge because kids our age could read even more books than forty books in ten months."

I laughed when he told me, "I don't know how I could have been such a reader slacker mom!" I am so proud of him.

Learning to love the Library, again.

I got out of the habit of going to the Library regularly when I was in college.  Growing up we were there regularly.  It was the only was we got to read new books to read (unless we got them as presents or from a yard sale).  In College, I only used it for studying. 

When HistoryBoy was little we would go to the Library events they had but we only took out one or two books and then stopped because he got a lot of books for gifts and B&N gift cards. HistoryBoy always uses his school library (mostly to take out books about the Titanic and other disasters), so much so that when he was "graduating" from the elementary to the middle school, the librarian at his school was getting rid of an old copy of a Titanic book and asked if he wanted it (DUH).

Me, I usually looked to buy books at the store, yard sales, the Paper Back Trader, Paper Back Swap, or borrow books from friends and family.  But lately I haven't been doing it as much just because buying books can be an expensive habit as much as I love them.

Now we are library fanatics again. The library has an eBook borrowing service. It rocks. AND if you read my previous blog, we now are supporting HistoryBoy's audio-book habit.  I can only afford so many, like the 3 he has, yeah that about the extent of my ability right now. So we are at the library several times a week now.  
I'm back into the reading habit/addiction I used to have.  Angus swears I read too fast to be human, but I love Love LOVE reading, finding out something new, visiting new places, even if fictional, very few movies EVER due justice to the world I've built up in my mind. I read 6 books in the past few weeks. Started and stopped reading a few others in there, have to go back to finish but another book grabbed my attention so I am in the middle of 2 books and about to go pick up a 3rd from the library because my hold just came in.  LOVE IT! 

If I sound excited I am, Angus doesn't share the same book tastes as me but NOW I have HistoryBoy to share this with.  He is just as excited now.  He asks me to help him find books and what I think he would like. (Hunger Games and Percy Jackson on next on his list!) Books I read and enjoyed, we can talk about now.  

This post probably sounds silly, but it is what it is.  A Thankful mom, sharing her joy! 

The Hard Road to Reading

Everyone who know HistoryBoy knows he loves to read.  Give him a book on Disasters, WWII, planes, trains, battleships, we are god to go.  He will pore over them for hours and hours. One of his favorite books is The Encyclopedia of Aircraft of WWII.  I think it was a b-day gift from HyperGirl and SassyGirl.  They know what he likes. LOL 

Fiction is a sticky issue.  He will read what he has to for school but beyond that. 

It used to be relatively easy. Magic School Bus were full of information, fact filled fiction with a TV series on PBS he loved.  The books started younger and then there was a chapter book series. Perfect!  The fact that Ms. Frizzle was a little nuts made it funny for him too and introduced him to puns and jokes which was great.


From there he jumped right into the Magic Tree House series.  It was also wonderful.  Stories filled with learning and every book had a reference guide that he could read to give him more info about the topic. AWESOME!  

After those, it was hit or miss until I remembered Encyclopedia Brown.  I loved them as a kid and so did my brother.  It took reading the first two chapters to him on the first book to get him interested. Then he kept reading and finished out most of the series.  It wasn't a fact filled at the previous series but it was logical and made sense so it worked.

I've tried to get him into other books and series but it has been difficult.  I sit and read with him and if the book grabs him he reads if not... Like I said difficult.  He complains it is boring.  There are not a lot of fact filled fiction or fiction book about disasters that are age appropriate.  It a roadblock I have been trying to overcome.

This year we hit a MAJOR obstacle . In his Literacy/Language Arts class he need to read 40 books this year. 40!?!  That's a book a week AND only 2 are non-fiction (biographies).  So that's 38! FICTION books for the kid who is not interested so he can pass 7th grade. HELP!!

I decided to just try a new series.  I picked up The Capture by Kathryn Lasky.  It the first on the Guardian of the Ga'hoole series. (And the made a movie of it about 5? years ago called the Legends of the Guardians.  I figured if I could get him reading the book, then watch the movie it might help.  I read the first chapter to him and he was hooked but it was taking him FOREVER to get through it.  

Then I remembered that in 2nd grade he loved Jigsaw Jones (an encyclopedia brown wannabe for younger kids) and he had listened to them on CD when he went to bed and loved it. I went to the library and found the CD Audio-book for The Journey.  He put it in his CD player and listened to it while reading the book.  It was AMAZING! He not only FINISHED the book but asked me to get him the second one.  (Library here I come!) 


Since then he has completed reading 4 books in total. He has read a Lego Hero Factory Book (without an audio-book), The Capture by Kathryn Lasky, The Journey by Kathryn Lasky and Diary of a Wimpy Kid #4. The library has audio-books for them.  Its been great.

Apparently now reading only one book at a time is boring.He has started reading 4 others, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, A Curious Man; The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It Or Not" Ripley, and The Bad Beginning.  

SO for everyone that has a kid who doesn't like to read or struggles, try what I did.  It may work, no guarantees, but it can't hurt and I am so happy that now I can share my love of reading with him. He is excited about reading now.  It grabs him and makes him want to read more.  And it only took pairing him and his book up with an audio-book.