In A Dark, Dark Room

Every summer, my children attend a camp out on the beach at our local lake. They enjoy setting up tents, roasting marshmallows, racing around in the dark with friends, and two of my three children love to hear and tell ghost stories around the campfire. Ghost story fever stays with them from the time of the camp out until Halloween. They spend those months on the lookout for new ghost stories. I try to find good ones at the library, but it is a difficult task balancing high interest with low fear factor. They don't want any "babyish" books, but I don't want to be woken up by children crying from nightmares. One of the best books we've found to satisfy everyone is Alvin Schwartz's In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. It is an easy reader, perfect for first and second graders. It contains a good mix of spooky, creepy, and funny stories perfect for campfires or pre-Halloween reading. My daughter who is now in the fourth grade first checked it out of the school library when she was in the first grade. It has been a family favorite ever since. My six year old son now owns his own copy and does a spine tingling rendition of "The Green Ribbon" story in it. I imagine he'll graduate to Goosebumps and Stephen King someday, but happily he's satisfied with this book for the time being.

Frog and Toad Are Friends of Mine!

Recently I found myself shopping for a small gift to give a three year old girl who just became a big sister. Arnold Lobel's sweet and funny Frog and Toad Are Friends fit the bill perfectly. When my six year old son came home from school last week saying he needs to read for twenty minutes each day as homework, I headed to the library to check out a whole stack of Frog and Toad books. When he saw them, Ethan told me, "You rock, Mom!" I'm sorry, but life doesn't get much sweeter than that. Although listening to him giggle his way through Frog and Toad Together last night was pretty great also. He loved how Toad lost his mind when he lost his list of things to do. Toad couldn't chase after the list because that wasn't one of the things written on the list of things to do. Don't we all love a good neurotic?! Arnold Lobel was a genius, and by the way, he illustrated the Miss Suzy book I mentioned back in Old School week.

Old School Week

My son' s homework for first grade this weekend was to find his favorite book from home to bring to school and share with his classmates. The students are not expected to read the books to the class, just share why they like them. I think that's great; I love a good book talk. The assignment got my husband and I talking about favorite books of ours from when we were Ethan's age. We both loved Caps for Sale. Who doesn't? We both remembered a book about an old man whose beard grows so long that birds build nests in it, but unfortunately we could not remember the title. Bill remembers loving Millions of Cats. That book never really did it for me, but oh, how I loved Miss Suzy! I dreamed of that book as a girl and read it so much! It is the story of a gray squirrel who is driven out of her oak tree home by some very mean red squirrels. Thank heavens she finds a doll house to live in and some toy soldiers to befriend. I haven't read it in years, but am now inspired to find a copy. Ethan chose the first Nate the Great book to share with his fellow first graders. All this strolling down literary memory lane has made me declare this Old School Week here at the Book Bench, celebrating books and things I loved back in the day-o. Feel free to comment with your old school favorites!

Once again, luck has saved the day here at the Book Bench. I was at the public library with all three of my kids yesterday. They were laughing with friends, pulling favorites (books and DVDs) from the shelves, and begging for time on the computer. We were in a bit of a hurry, and I had to keep telling them to "wrap it up." Each kid checked out a few books to bring on our upcoming vacation, then we ran out of there to quickly eat a hastily thrown together dinner before racing off to a swim meet. Once we arrived at the meet, it soon became apparent that goggles and a swim cap had been left on our kitchen table. I left the kids with another mom to warm up with their team and drove like the devil to retrieve the cap and goggles. On my drive home, I couldn't help but think of something I'd read at the library earlier. While the books were being checked out, I managed to flip through the August issue of Parents magazine and read that "Kids who grow up in an organized and calm home are more likely to have good early reading skills at ages five and six" according to a study done by Ohio State University and Teachers College of Columbia University. Having set mealtimes and bedtimes, using a family calendar and turning off the TV during dinner are all key to developing these early reading skills. We don't have a television anywhere near our kitchen or dining room, but those other three challenge me. In light of this study, it is surprising that my youngest son can read at all, given that he has spent the first six years of his life in a state of unrelenting disorganization and hurry. His kindergarten teacher obviously deserves a big thank you, but I also think somebody needs to study the effects of eating a salami and cheese sandwich and banana for dinner in a moving minivan while your older sister reads to you and your mom drives everyone to a soccer game on reading skills. Luckily, that method seems to have worked for us because I know the calm organized home won't appear anytime soon.