Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to Reading with M.

I decided to start this blog after reading many similar blogs and lists of read-aloud selections for young children. However, I quickly exhausted those lists, and also found that I discovered, through family, friends, the library, and some well-curated independent bookstores, other books that I wanted to share.

About us.

M. is four years old and our only child. Unfortunately (as of August 2020), due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he is not currently in school, which is one of the reasons that I have been reading to him more than usual. I am a college professor teaching from home, and my spouse has a similarly flexible job. We have thus far been able to juggle childcare and work, though not without significant stress and a bit of drama. Reading together, however, has been a bright spot.

M. has always loved to read, and we have been reading to him since he was about 6 weeks old. But, when we received a copy of Dory Fantasmagory: The Real True Friend in the mail from M.'s Nonna last spring, we realized we had entered a new world, and that M. was ready for longer books with more text. I had not expected this moment to come so soon, and while many of my childhood favorites were great options, we have quickly exhausted these. In searching for more options, I have discovered great new children's novels, and classics that I did not experience as a child.

The books that I will discuss are explicitly not for early readers to read on their own. There are some I Can Read books that we very much enjoy, and that find excellent and interesting ways to play with language. However, the books we have most loved to get lost in—and I speak for myself as well as M.; this is a joint endeavor—use literary language that would not be out of place in fiction written for adults.  

I plan to focus primarily on middle-grade novels that appeal to and are appropriate for a preschool audience, but I will also share some the picture books we have returned to over and over again.

Thanks for reading!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading in French!

 Two days ago, M. read a paragraph out loud to me in French! I am so impressed and proud of him, and happy that our approach has worked—since he has followed the CP (first grade) curriculum this past year at his FLAM classes, it seemed like he could read a little (but not a lot) but he never wanted to do it at home. Ever since we spent 15 days in Paris two summers ago, English has been definitively established as our home language. It felt cozy and right, and it is our default. That's okay. We still read a lot at night in French and M. speaks French with L., but I haven't pushed it. So, when I asked if he wanted to read in French for a day instead of doing his English writing homework, and he said "yes," I was pleasantly surprised to hear him sound out words in French. How did we get here? A few things: 1. As his maternelle teacher said during our conference, kids learn to read once—you don't learn to read in English and then French, or vice versa. M. speaks Frenc...
Read more

Sabbatical Adventures

 Welcome, and welcome back! A brief update since a lot of time has passed since I regularly updated this blog (a covid project, primarily): As of June 2024, M. is seven, soon going on eight, and L., our new arrival, is six months. In less than two months, we are moving to France for the year for my work. M. will attend CE2 (the French equivalent of third grade) while we are there. L. will likely stay home full-time, as she has proven to be a more reliable napper than M. was, at least in early infancy. In January we might reevaluate the situation, but, as romantic as the crèche  sounds and how much hype it gets in anglophone circles, it is actually pretty tough to get a spot if both parents aren't working full-time in an office. We also just feel like she is very little to go to daycare, even if what is available is high quality, since we have the flexibility to keep her home for now. As far as this big transition goes for M., I began speaking to him in French on and off from w...
Read more

Our Top Ten First Chapter Books

 Last April M's Nonna sent us a copy of Dory Fantasmagory: The Real True Friend, and it sent us down the exciting new path of reading novels together. I knew that Max loved plot driven books with a lot of text, such as One Morning in Maine . What I didn't know was that he had the patience to sit through a novel. (And during the height of the COVID-19 stay-at-home order in our state, this was truly an amazing discovery, as we spent hours every day reading.) Here are ten of the first chapter books that we read and that we have returned to over and over again: 1. Dory Fantasmagory: The Real True Friend  by Abby Hanlon I have a soft spot for Dory , as this and the other books in the series were the books that introduced us to chapter books. Dory  and her world are both wacky in the best sense of the word. These books are about five and six year olds, so will appeal to that age group and slightly younger kids. The Real True Friend is the second book in the series, but they can...
Read more