Reader

This is Jonah at Sunday Dinner at my Mom's house last week.

I've always been a big reader. And I've always hoped my kids would be big readers. All my kids have always liked books, but for my boys, its almost been exclusively non-fiction books. They'd rather read about the weather, or animals of the southwest than anything with a story, or a plot or chapters. And I had read somewhere that that is pretty normal for boys. It takes them longer to make the switch to story books than girls. And I have no scientific evidence to back that up, but it sounds good, right?

So while I wasn't worried about their reading, I was excited when in the last 6 months or so Jonah started to really get into reading chapter books. And in the last month or so Noel, I assume because he was trying to be cool like Jonah, started reading chapter books too. Jonah usually has a stack of about 9 books that he is reading at a time stacked next to his bed. He can't seem to keep track of a book mark (big shocker) so all of the books are laying open, spines up, one on top of the other, each holding the place of the book underneath it. It seems like a complicated system. He love Goosebumps, because he loves ghosts, even though he is too scared to go in our basement (where his bedroom is) by himself. And he has read a million of them. 

Which begs the question, what's next? Now don't get me wrong. I love Goosebumps. There mah fahvorite! And if he wants to read exclusively Goosebumps for the next 6 years, that is fine with me too. I'm a firm believer that you let kids read what they want to read and then they will read more. But I would love to offer some suggestions. I got him a couple Roald Dahl books and a Jim Kjelgaard book I loved when I was a kid and they didn't seem to click (maybe they are still a little too old for him.) Any thoughts? What is your 8 year old reading?