{"id":7172,"date":"2015-02-02T08:27:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T13:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=7172"},"modified":"2015-03-16T13:38:03","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T17:38:03","slug":"best-books-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/02\/best-books-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Books for Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend we went out to an early dinner and afterwards we decided to putz around the bookstore rather than go home and drive each other crazy until bed time.<\/p>\n

The girls always run straight for the\u00a0Frozen<\/em> section and Doodle grabs whatever he can get his hands on (this time was a pre-teen sci-fi thick chapter book). \u00a0As they perused the books and played nicely at the train table, I set on a mission for chapter book ideas for Honeybun.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>She started reading chapter books in the fall but has been all over the place. \u00a0We’ve read the entire Kirsten set from the American Girls series (which thankfully my mommy still had since they no longer publish the original girls’ stories). \u00a0She’s also read\u00a0Peter Pan<\/em> and we read\u00a0Treasure Island<\/em> together (the Treasury of Illustrated Classics versions). \u00a0The rest of her reading has been a myriad of randomness that she’s received as gifts:\u00a0Dolphin Tale 2<\/em>,\u00a0The Magic Kitten<\/em>,\u00a0Nancy Clancy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And while I’m not against her reading lots of different types of things, I want to make sure she is reading quality books so wanted to see what else was available to us for the future. \u00a0I remember my favorite chapter books when I was older and I know I definitely wasn’t reading chapter books at six years old so I don’t have a lot of favorites in that young reader’s category.<\/p>\n

So I started browsing over the chapterbook selection as labeled for 5 to 8 year olds and I have to say and I was pretty disappointed at what I saw:\u00a0Judy Moody, Captain Underpants, Bad Kitty, Dork Diaries, Diary of a Wimpy Kid<\/em>. \u00a0What will those teach my kid? \u00a0Then there\u00a0was a slew of mystery and adventure series and a ton of “girl” series like The Magic Kitten<\/i>,\u00a0Palace Pets\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Rainbow Magic<\/em>. \u00a0Where is the substance? \u00a0I’m not the type of parent that wants my kids to JUST read. \u00a0I want them reading things that are meaningful, challenge their minds, expand their horizons and make them ask questions.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I ever\u00a0loved<\/em> reading as a child (or adult, really) but I did enjoy it when I was reading a book that was interesting and left me asking questions and wanting more. \u00a0I feel like a lot of what is offered now is just mindless words aimed at making kids “want” to read because the system is failing them. By forcing kids to read before they are ready (and I could go on and on about how the average\u00a0kindergarten aged child is NOT ready to read), we are causing frustration, feelings of inferiority\u00a0and a disdain for the whole idea. \u00a0So we have to pump our children full of nonsense just to get them reading. \u00a0We tell them “here, read this book that has not substance or real value because at least you’re\u00a0reading<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

But what good is reading junk? \u00a0Which do you value more:\u00a0The National Enquirer<\/em>\u00a0or the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>? \u00a0Fifty\u00a0<\/em>Shades of Gray<\/em> or War and Peace<\/em>? \u00a0It’s no different for our children, really. \u00a0Don’t they deserve the best of the best?<\/p>\n

There is a great book out there for every child in every interest category, unfortunately it just takes more effort to find them than to pick up a skinny book with a stupid title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend we went out to an early dinner and afterwards we decided to putz around the bookstore rather than go home and drive each other crazy until bed time. The girls always run straight for the\u00a0Frozen section and Doodle grabs whatever he can get his hands on (this time was a pre-teen sci-fi thick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-kids","category-the-home-school-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7174,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172\/revisions\/7174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}