Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride

Purchased this with Lumpy on the way to his very first Orthodontist appointment last Friday. It was the perfect treat to take his mind off the dreaded consultation and to read while in the waiting room. He had finished reading the book to himself by the time we got home, sadly it is a quick read but probably perfect for him at this stage. Great illustrations from Chris Van Dusen, who we already knew of from our Book Fair purhase this year of 'A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee'. Lumpy thoroughly enjoyed the second Mercy Watson tale of the hot buttered toast loving pig, which is aimed at the 6-8 yr old market. Kate DiCamillo has got herself a nice series that is a funny, cute and eye candy for emerging readers to gain confidence with. I think I will find myself continuing to buy the future books in the series even if L gets too old for them....thinking of grandchildren hoho. The third in the series is due out August 22nd 2006 and is called Mercy Watson Fights Crime. We will definitely be buying it, and I am curious as to how many tales of Mercy there will be in the future.

As for me I finished I, Coriander and loved it. I am now reading Ingo by Helen Dunmore and this too is going to be a delightful read. Hubby is plowing on with Peter and the Starcatchers, but seems to be disillusioned at present, more details when he's finished.

For reading practice L finished Magic Treehouse #2: Knights at Dawn, and his Dad had been reading to him from his Commandos at bedtime. I am no futher on with reading more Fergus Crane to him since last week, we have had too much going on. This afternoon is mean't to be quiet but something always comes along, no complaints, that's the beauty of summer hols.

Fergus Crane

Okay so this blogging lark is not so easy to keep up with, I missed a day!!

Lumpy was exhausted yesterday and was asleep by 7pm! He had Gymnastic camp in the morning for 3 hrs then we met his little friend and family for lunch and then played Putt Putt. The day was overcast and cool with the threat of tropical storm Alberto, so a perfect temp to let the kids enjoy the outside inside of the plan to see the new movie 'Cars'.

So very little reading done yesterday, hubby read him one of his new commando comics that a very good friend posted to him from the UK. He loves army stuff and the comics are only available over there, if you are interested see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_Comics

Today was better for reading as part of TS Alberto came over us and we had a windy and very wet afternoon after camp, so a perfect excuse to get cozy indoors. So I started to read Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart (shown above) to L, and he's hooked!! It is an adorable story so far and perfect for reading aloud. It's a small hardback, albeit thick with 214 pages, and wonderful black and white illustrations by Chris Riddell on a lot of the pages and a great map at the beginning. This is ideal for my 7 year old as he still loves to have pictures with his stories and this will wean him for the books later that will not include any.

Lumpy read a chapter of Magic Treehouse #2: Knights At Dawn out loud to me afterwards, but he wasn't keen to read any more than that, he wanted to do Maths from his new summer workbook we got yesterday.

I am half way through I, Coriander and still enjoying it. Hubby ran out of books to read so I suggested Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, which I so happened to have just bought on sale on Monday to add to Lumpy's 'library' . He was dubious to start with but he is now on page 80 after only a few nights and he seems pleasantly surprised. I am too, especially as his reading time has been severely limited by the football/soccer World Cup that started last weekend. It's keeping an old man awake.....that's a sign of a good book!!

Where did the day go?

Began the day with taking L to Gymnastic Camp for a few hours. So I enjoyed a White Chocolate Mocha at the bookshop and hunted down books in the Kids Fiction that I've read reviews on. We then had a few hours swimming and reading, L started and finished the first of the Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne. He has refused to read any of the MT series until our neighbour across the road lent us a pile of chapters book from her 1st Grade classsroom last week. They are mostly Junie B.'s and a couple more Magic Treehouse and Horrible Harry's. He was tickled to get the books and he pulls one out whenever he feels like it, it was lovely of her to think of him.

We finally finished The Giggler Treatment, L enjoyed it, it was funny, wacky and a nice short read so it's a keeper.

Tomorrow he can chose the next book from the list below. Seeing as he is enjoying plowing through the neighbours books I think he'd be better off having me read to him before he burns out. I am going to push for Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart, looks fun, not too long and nice handy size to carry around!!

Our Summer Reading List

Here is a list of books I've purchased over the last 4 months to be read to or by Lumpy in no particular order:



The Magician's Boy by Susan Cooper

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Great-Grandpa's in the LiItter Box (The Zack Files) by Dan Grrenburg

The Dragon of Doom (Moongobble and Me) by Bruce Coville

The Class Trip from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler

The New Kid at School (Dragon Slayers Academy 1) by Kate McMullan

The Elevator Family by Douglas Evans

Pure Dead Magic by Debi Gliori

Stink the Incredible Shrinking Kid by Megan McDonald

Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown

The Transmogrification of Roscoe Wizzle by David Elliot

Tom Swift: Young Inventor - Into the Abyss by Victor Appleton

The Anybodies by N.E.Bode

Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

Joe Sherlock: Kid Detective - The Haunted Toolshed by Dave Keane

Now how many we get through in the remaining 9 weeks of the summer break is anyones' guess. Especially since we still need to finish The Giggler Treatment!!

A First!!!.

Woohoo, finally the pool was ready to swim in for the first time this year. We took the cover off last week to find a lovely colour green but not appealing water, ick! Hubby did a great job getting it ready.

The water temp sounds good at 80 degrees but it is bloody freezing, Lumpy had no problem with it and assured me it was fine once you got used to it. His Dad on the other hand was a complete wimp about it and only got in a couple of times, the last one after he was shamed into a game of volleyball!! He is getting old hahah.

But my momment of pride today was watching Lumpy wrapped in his towel on the lounger reading Horrible Harry and the Green Slime by Suzy Kline. I am dead chuffed. He started it yesterday up to page 4 and he finished the book over the course of 3hrs this afternoon. It was sooo sooo cute, the three of us relaxing each reading contentedly, it was a first!!! Anyway I was reading I, Coriander by Sally Gardner (which is an absolute delight...... she has used one candle so far ) and hubby finished off The Triumph of the Sun by Wilbur Smith.

We still have not finished The Giggler Treatment, so no new book started yet. What with each of us reading it to him in turns I have no clue what is going on now, but Lumpy is enjoying it and still giggling here and there. He enjoys the ink/pencil illustrations by Brian Ajhar, of various sizes that occur on most of the pages, his favourite is on page 56 where Kayla has stones in her nappy!!

The Giggler Treatment

We are reading Roddy Doyle's The Giggler Treatment. (Hubby and I are old fans of Doyle's adult books The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van and especially the films) We started at bedtime Wednesday night, and the chapters are very short and sweet. Lumpy at one point was reading one page ( the one with the least writing haha) and I the other after he told me he could read this book. But it did not last long and I read the last few.

Dad managed to read a few more chapters last night (Thursday) as Lumpy fell asleep. Well it was 9pm and he been to watch a Baseball game with a little friend and the friends Grandad. He was having a good time, even got a ball from a players, but he had a fall on the area near the playground and badly scarped his knee and chin. He apparently asked his little friend not to tell anyone and that he'd deal with it himself?!?!?

Anyway for such a small book ( it only has 112 pages) and large font it is taking us a long time to finish!! So far though it has been funny and has frequent references to poo, this always delights Lumpy.

I plan to read more to L today so that we can start a new book tonight. Hopefully he will read a book to me, we will see. We are doing the http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/ and the http://www.scholastic.com/summerreading/ online as incentive and then http://www.barnesandnoble.com/subjects/children/summer_reading_kids/index.asp?z=y&cds2Pid=1669&linkid=689404 for a free book after reading 8.

The hardcover edition we have is shown above, I prefer this cover art to the others I have seen.

A Beginners Start!!!

Well I have no clue what I'm doing, but I feel it's time to start my own blog after enjoying so many this year, please bare with me. I want to share with you the books being read to and by my emerging 7 year old bookworm and this is the perfect way if I can get over the shyness.

So a bit more about us. I am Welsh and Hubby is Scottish, happily married for almost 18years. Lumpy (not his real name) is our busy, demanding, active little 7yr old son.

This blog will be all about him!!

His reading has come on great in his 1st Grade year 05/06. He even got a certificate for "Most Improved Reader" at the end of the school year last week. I admit to being worried through Kindergarten, he was showing no interest in reading and it was a struggle for all concerned to do his reading homework each night.

But wow what a difference now, he read about 35 books himself from Christmas, it's taken a few different incentives. But practice, practice has definitely shown a result in his reading skills. This time last year we were so relieved to not have reading homework, avoiding the frustration the three of us felt was a relief. You can't make them read, so we did the summer slide I'm afraid, still showing him our love of books and continued to read lots to him. Hoping to get a glimpse of interest from him. It took longer than we thought, but here we are and we are chuffed to bits with his progress. A week ago today he took a borrowed neighbours Junie B. book and read through it all .........to himself, I thought that would never happen!!

I hope to get the list of books that slowly brought out the bookworm on this blog soon. I know I spent many many hours searching shops, libraries and the web for book ideas/suggestions and know that not everyone has that luxury. So that's why I started this blog, wish me luck ;-)