Introduction

In my mommy circles I often hear the words "reluctant reader."  Mommies worry and fret over their children, mostly sons, because they just do not seem to have developed a passion for reading!  I once even worried if I had a reluctant reader, so I promised myself that if my son had a book in his hand and was really enjoying himself, that I would let him engage in any book (as long as he was mature enough for the subject matter) he sees fit!  I was not going to turn my nose up at comic books or even books that were obviously below his reading level.  If he was reading, I was happy and he reads A LOT!

Then my next journey was to look for great books!  Books that he would find engaging!  I saw that there were 1000's of titles out there and we were going to explore as many as possible!  I was open to anything! But in my journey to help my son find great books to read, I have come to discover that authors have really gotten with the theme of reluctant readers and they sneak in lots of cool history and science into their books too!  Yeah, the kids are learning about science and history as they read!  How awesome is that!

Let's face it, I am a home school mom, I see my sons nose in a book all the time and I have even read most of the books!  My son is  a veracious reader that he reads about 30 chapter books a month, and I hear him laughing, giggling and excited!  I see a book that he can barely get through and I know it is a dud!  I see a silly book that in one day he sits and reads 3 books from the same series and he is begging for more and I want to get on top of a mountain and tell all you mothers of reluctant readers about it!  So that is my goal, to tell parents from research (my son laughing and reading) what books are really engaging.  Another form of engaging I look for is "Does this book show up in his creative play?"  IF I see this, I KNOW that he is fully engaged and learning!  You should always watch for signs of being engaged in a book like drawing pictures, acting it out, and talking constantly about it, Sometimes kids are made to read books that they can not relate to or just not interested in!  To me this is very sad, and is the chief reason why we have kids that do not enjoy books. Especially when there are 1,000 and 1,000 of books to choose from!

My son is nicknamed Rover, he is 8 years old and in 3rd grade.  He reads above level, but he enjoys all manner of books.  So, we hope that you enjoy our blog and that it will be a great resource for you to find some fun reading for your little ones!

My apologize if you follow Raising a Renaissance Man, there will be a few copies of those blogs.  I am moving them to this blog, so I can keep focused on book recommendations.