Children who read early pose peculiar problems for parents. While many parents struggle to get their children to open a book, these parents can't keep their children supplied with enough reading material. They are continually searching for books that meet with their children's capability and are not too sophisticated, sexy, or serious. Here are some tips to help parents discover novels that will challenge their children's literary gifts without injuring their emerging sensibilities.
As these children plunge into the reading, they pass through three different and stages that may frustrate their parents. First, precocious young readers as young as four leap immediately into reading novels without much life experience to anchor them. These Starting Readers need books with short chapters, some pictures, and young themes. The second stage occurs when Growing Readers fro m six to eight, become voracious book gobblers who hunger after longer books with less mature themes. Last come Solid Readers, ages 8-10, who can read any book, and drive their parent wild seeking age-appropriate books with huge page counts.
If these describe any of your parenting quandaries, here are five general tips.
Books that were written in earlier eras are often gentler reads. Many have been re-released in recorded and boxed set versions, others may be out of print but can be found in libraries.
It's difficult enough to find a book that works, if you find a series, you're guaranteed a set of books to keep young readers happy for awhile. Especially if they're long books! One word of caution, beware of series like Harry Potter that follow heroes as they grow. While the early books of the series work beautifully, the later ones, when the character matures, are less successful for young readers and can be downright scary!
Typically longer books are written for older children and this they often have material that is too sophisticated for young children. Calm yourself by knowing that generally if children stumble on ideas that are too advanced, these ideas will go over their heads, not send them into trauma.
Yes, these children can read any book they want, but are they finding happiness in their reading? Nurturing a love of reading is as important as seeking books with a high page count.
For young children, not all genres work. For example, in the case of the earliest readers, historical fiction is problematic because they have not had enough life experiences to understand context and content. Below find four genres that work. I offer an example for each level and a list of more suggestions for further reading.
Often advanced young readers have big imaginations and early on become captured by fantasy worlds. These books, always a strong genre, have exploded in numbers, but many of them are intended for young adult audiences. How do you find the tamer titles? Try these.
Ruth Styles Gannett's My Father's Dragon is a three book series about a young boy who rescues a baby dragon and discovers a wonderful imaginary land. (all books $7.95 from Random House)
More Suggestions:
L.M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe (Harcourt, $6.00) This is the first in a series of six books about lonely Toseland who goes to spend a summer with his great-grandmother begins to learn of his 17th century ancestors from her tales and soon becomes friends with three children from that era.
More Suggestions:
Cornelia Funke, Dragon Rider (Scholastic, $12.95) The top-selling fantasy author had a book for younger readers. In this 500+ page fantasy-adventure the orphan Ben accompanies the dragon, Firedrake and a host of other magical creatures on his quest to find the protection for his winged friends.
Other Suggestions:
Children love to read about other children's struggles and triumphs, but how do you escape issue-based literature that often characterize these book?. Here are contemporary books with small problems and more classic books with gentler presentations.
Judy Blume, Freckle Juice (Yearling, $4.50) Andrew's always wanted freckles, will his classmates' secret recipe work? (Also by this author The One in the Middle is a Green Kangaroo)
More Suggestions:
Beverly Cleary's Klickitat series Nearly twenty books feature characters like Beezus, Ramona and Henry Huggins whose realistic adventures and small issues encourage the compassion of all child readers.
More Suggestions:
Frances Burnett, The Secret Garden / A Little Princess (both from Harper Trophy, $5.99) These two long English children's classics are beautifully written and old-fashionedly sweet, not saccharine. The Secret Garden tells the story of a spoiled orphan child who seeks to find a home far from her native India. Sara Crew, the heroine of A Little Princess, is a young wealthy girl who becomes poor when it's believed her father has died.
More Suggestions:
The most compelling literature is mystery and adventure runs it a close second. In both genres you want the conflict, but nothing that would engender fear.
David Adler, Cam Jansen series (Puffin, $3.99) This ever growing set of books has a heroine whose photographic memory helps her solve mysteries.
More Suggestions:
Gertrude Chandler Warner's Box Car series (Books 1-4, Whitman, $17.95) This series features four adventuresome children who run away after their parents' death and wind up living in their grandfather's old train car. The series begun in the 1940's is still growing despite the author's death.
More Suggestions:
E.L. Konisburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Aladdin, $5.99) Claudia and her brother are so determined to solve a mystery that they run away to the Metropolitan Museum and hide there!
More Suggestions:
Generally tales with animal heroes tend to be safe bets. These heroic characters are often so engaging they tend to enchant young readers and form a literary bond that lasts a lifetime of remembering.
Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox (Puffin, $5.99) Clever Mr. Fox has to keep one step ahead of the farmers who want to destroy his family.
Other suggestions:
Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington (Houghton Mifflin, $5.95) Adventures of a family who takes in the small bear from darkest Peru they find in Paddington station. There are four original adventures and many other copy-cat books...stick with the originals.
More Suggestions:
Walter R. Books, Freddy the Pig series (Freddy Anniversary Collection includes the original three books, Overlook, $35.00) Twenty-six books written with wit and humor follow this porcine hero through adventures that take him from being a cowboy hero to discovering aliens.
More Suggestions:
Hopefully this will blaze a path that gives parents a place to start. Parents should, of course, take into account their childrens' maturity, sensitive areas, and literary interests.
Ultimately, pre-reading may be the best route to parent security.