What My Kids Are Reading: July 21, 2017
The 13-Story Treehouse
This week my kids read an old classic, a loved series book, and a new-to-us wild and crazy story. Tell me what you and your kids have been reading this week!
The 8-Year-Old
A New Class (Star Wars: Jedi Academy 4)
With a new book in the Jedi Academy series being released next week (The Force Oversleeps (Star Wars: Jedi Academy 5)
The 6-Year-Old
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
The Cat in the Hat is back for more adventures! Sally and her brother are stuck shoveling snow while their mother goes into town (Have children also been this, admittedly forced, industrious?). The Cat shows up and makes the job go by faster, while getting into some mischief along the way. I know we all know about Dr. Seuss, but they’re so easy to forget about, at least for me, with beginning readers. I’m always in such a hurry to get my kids reading more modern books that I love that I forget how amazing Dr. Seuss books are. My 6-year-old picked this out at the library (one of the few Dr. Seuss’s we don’t have) and has read the entire thing on his own. I have a feeling we’ll be adding this to our permanent collection!
What We’re Reading Together
The 13-Story Treehouse
This was a bit of an impulse purchase for me. I had heard it was a good book, it has some graphic novel elements, and what kid doesn’t want to read about a giant treehouse? Y’all. This book is nuts, but in a great way. It’s about two kids, Andy and Terry (named after the author and illustrator), who live in a treehouse. But not just any treehouse. This treehouse has a marshmallow-shooting machine, a lemonade fountain, a man-eating shark tank, and much more. This book is so great because of its kookiness. If I had to guess, I’d say that the author and illustrator are good friends who had no problem coming up with the kind of wild and crazy adventures that usually only kids can come up with. (Like a cat that turns into a canary. A catnary.) My kids can’t wait until it’s time to settle down and read more of this book every night, and my 8-year-old got impatient and read ahead one day. The 13-Story Treehouse has all the right elements for a fun children’s book: action, humor, adventure, and man-eating sharks. We will definitely be buying the rest of the books in the series!