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Of Cats and Kids

Summer reading for the slightly less-than-serious student

Posted by: Carol Lombardi

Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:34 PM

The day is finally near when the school calendar catches up to my daughter's brain, which has already been on summer vacation for two weeks. This brings us to the start of the ubiquitous "summer reading program."

My kid is big on reading, and comes from a long line of bookworms, so our summer reading program consists of me looking up from my reading material from time to time in order to watch her read.

To make it easier to choose "good" books, people create lists of books kids should read, especially in the summer. Even Oprah has a kids book list. These lists are alarmingly similar, implying a lack of imagination or simply a misguided philosophy that "earnest, dull and occasionally disturbing" books" are inherently better than silly, irreverent and occasionally pointless ones. In "A cure for kids summer reading doldrums" the author reflects that while adults read whatever makes them happy, "our kids are on a forced march through books in which a dog dies and a child learns a painful lesson, or a parent dies and a child learns a painful lesson, or a child dies and ANOTHER child learns a painful lesson."

I tend to be a little pushy on what I think my daughter should read, and she tends to push back quite adamantly about what SHE wants to read. I have won exactly zero of those exchanges. Alas, she is not mini-me.

My summer reading goal is to sit back and enjoy having a kid who is happy to have her nose in a book and not worry about which book it is.

Her current favorite: The Dear Dumb Diary series, which really are pretty funny books. It's kind of like a slightly grown up Junie B. Jones.