Comments on: Books in the Home: Reading Up

By: robyn

robyn — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:41:52 +0000

“This is one of the awful parts. I’m not going to read it to you. You’re only four months old. Maybe later — when you are big enough to lay eggs.”

i love it! her sensibility says much more about her than any “timeline” or “appropriateness” of what to read and when to read it!

thanx for sharing.

By: The Horn Book Magazine -- November/December 2012 — The Horn Book

The Horn Book Magazine -- November/December 2012 — The Horn Book — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:36:55 +0000

[...] in the Home Reading Up A writer and mother discovers its pros and [...]

By: Dianna Winget

Dianna Winget — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:28:24 +0000

Hi Roasanne
I enjoyed your article in the Horn Book Review on reading up. I think kids should be encouraged to read what appeals to their interests at any given time . . . within reason. But at the same time, kids are kids for such a short time today. Why rush a eight or nine year old into adult themes far before they need to be? There was an interesting discussion a little while back on GoodReads about whether an eleven year old was too young to read Water for Elephants. I found the mixed comments intriguing. Personally, I’d be embarrassed to death if my eleven year old daughter read some of the content in that book. But others seemed to think it was fine. Interesting subject at any rate.

By: homeschoolingmomofautstic

homeschoolingmomofautstic — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:53:07 +0000

I was a precocious reader, my parents let me read anything I wanted but I did stay to the and YA areas until I read everything our library owned in those sections, then I was allowed to go onto older books. I would spend hours reading our home encyclopedias and re-read picture books. My parents never discouraged reading up but they wanted me to appreciate the books we had in the house as well. I do the same with my son, granted he is very delayed in reading and cannot read independently at all but we have everything in our house from phonics readers, board books to YA books. The majority of our home library is picture books right now and we encourage him to check out only picture books or board books from the library. We have “read up” to him as family read alouds a chapter a day but me and his father do pick out what is appropriate for him to hear/read. He has just turned 7 and is a very sensitive soul, so we have sheltered him from a lot of literature. Not to say we have censored him at all, he is free to read anything he wants when it is age appropriate for his maturity level. As adults me and my husband still enjoy reading a good picture book with my son, there are so many out there I can’t imagine missing out on all of them. I don’t regret being a precocious reader and reading up as a kid, but I do thank my parents for making me see the value in age appropriate books at the same time.

By: Interesting post on “Reading Up” | Hope Is the Word

Interesting post on “Reading Up” | Hope Is the Word — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:53:31 +0000

[...] just read a very interesting post at The Horn Book by Rosanne Parry (author of Heart of a Shepherd, which I loved) on “reading up,” that is, letting our [...]

By: Elizabeth Holloway

Elizabeth Holloway — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:43:04 +0000

Rosanne,
Thank you for sharing your personal experience with allowing children to “read-up.” We often need to consider not just what they might be achieving but what they might be missing! Bigger, longer and more complex text are not always the best or only match for strong or motivated readers. I too am sharing your post.

By: Holly Mueller

Holly Mueller — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:23:53 +0000

This is an excellent post, and you reflect much of my ambivalence since I , too, let and encouraged my girls to read up. I totally see your points against it, but like you, I also don’t entirely regret it. However, I did make some mistakes letting my older daughter read some adult books that I shouldn’t have because I didn’t remember all the adult content! She was wise enough, fortunately, to put them down if she came across things she wasn’t ready for. I do lament my fourth graders reading The Hunger Games trilogy, and I try to discourage it and don’t have the books in my classroom library, but they still bring them in from home. I blame that on the movie craze of some of these books – the movies make their way into pop culture, so then the kids who are too young read the books. I was lucky with my daughters and Harry Potter because my oldest was in 1st grade when the first one came out, so she matured along with the themes in the books as they were published. My younger daughter was only a couple years behind, so she, too, was old enough when the final ones came out. Harry Potter is still treasured in our household and we definitely had the same bonding experiences over the series as you expressed in your post. I’m going to share this post because I think it’s worth talking about as parents and teachers!