A few posts back, I wrote about the point where a human brain starts to unscramble a bunch of wiggly lines and how groups of them can impart information, in other words learning how to read. It is a wonderful thing.
I sort of remember the point this incredible realization happened to me in kindergarten, and I remember precisely when it happened to our two sons. And now with our two grandchildren, one is off and running and our five-year-old granddaughter hasn’t really quite worked it out. But she’s close.
Jackson, who’s now eight, reads very well. During a recent sleepover we were playing a card game about animals and he read one card and zipped right through “Madagascar” without so much as.a bump. To say the least, I was really impressed.
Today when we saw him briefly, he was taking a library book back to school and I asked him whether he’d enjoyed it.
“It was okay, I guess. It was sort of boring.”
The book didn’t have that many pages, and thinking back to the reading skills he demonstrated during his sleepover, I had a brainstorm.
“Would you like to read a real mystery story?”
Jax knows I write crime fiction, though he isn’t quite clear on the concept. “I guess so.”
“I think you’ll really enjoy it, although it’s quite a bit longer than this book,” I told him, holding up his library book. “Are you up for a challenge?” (Baiting the hook!)
In my mind was the Encyclopedia Brown series. I actually read the first book when I was 12. It had just been published and was recommended to me by the children’s librarian at the village library. It was pretty simple to me, but I enjoyed the puzzles, trying to beat Brown to the solution. I also know from my teaching days how much the books in this series have been enjoyed by kids ever since. As well, because they’re a series of short story puzzles, I figure Jax will have no trouble handling it.
So as soon as I post this on Type M, I’m going to call up our fabulous children’s bookstore here in Toronto, Mabel’s Fables, and hopefully it will be in stock. If not, I’ll get them to order a copy.
Jax, like most modern boys, is more interested in video games, but I’m hoping he’ll really enjoy the book featuring a boy detective in which case I’ll happily buy more. Since we see our grandkids often, I can do a little pushing about reading when he’s here and see where it goes. I’d love nothing more than to see him become an avid reader. His uncle is one, his dad not so much.
Let’s hope Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol can work some magic and another person gets hooked on reading.
