Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Adult lit "gateway drug" books?

Lord of the Rings series, Hobbit, Peter Pan, Narnia are some of the books that I read aloud to my son at that age.

Though not "adult" literature, another series that we did before that was Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series. We also did all the follow-up books to the Oz series which were a lot at that time. My son was very impressed with Dorothy and friends and wanted me to read as many stories of them as possible.

Anastasia
Animal Farm
A Wrinkle in Time
Island of the Blue Dolphins

Don't rule out adult nonfiction. Depending on your mutual interests, there are wonderful biographies you could read.

My son is only 6, but three recent read alouds that he really enjoyed were The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows (I edited out the word ass throughout, saying instead I've been so stupid or silly instead of I've been such an ass), and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. He especially loved The Wind in the Willows and made me reread it immediately. I personally found reading it to be very difficult, I swear every sentence is like 5 run on sentences all smooshed together. Plus I found it boring. But he loved it!

I preview everything I read to him or give him to read. Some of the most recent books I've given him to read are Howl's Moving Castle, Time Cat, Augie and the Green Knight, and Norby the Mixed up Robot. Since we are a sci fi/fantasy family I am always looking for kid friendly stuff in those genres. DS has also recently been very into reading Winnie the Pooh and has the cutest voices he uses for the different characters.

Like I said, my son is only 6 and might be well behind where you guys are at, but I thought maybe even some lower level ideas might help out some. We read at all different levels and are always looking for good books that are kid safe anywhere from early chapter books to books written for adults. Hope you find some good stuff

Speaking of To Say Nothing of the Dog, you guys might also enjoy Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. (It would be a good one to read first, as TSNotD refers to it.) I find that humorous books tend to make some of the best read-alouds, except in some cases where the humor is very dependent on the way words are written (e.g., some Terry Pratchett, The Phantom Tollbooth).

DD loved some of George MacDonald's works-- and Betty MacDonald's, too at this age and slightly younger. They both make great read-alouds.

(The Princess and the Goblin, in the case of the former, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle in the case of the latter, incidentally.)

Also count us as another family that got a lot of mileage out of the Oz books. DD was another young lady who appreciated Jane Austen enormously, so I hope that her other favorites might be helpful to you.

She also likes Connie Willis' sensibilities. Her sense of humor is terrific. Ahh-- she has another set of time-travel books, set in WWII London during the Blitz. DD and I both have enjoyed those (though she is a bit older than the child in the OP's post)-- something about being asynchronous is treated very seriously by those books, that's all I'll say about that. It's a very deeply resonant and seldom well-explored theme. But Willis treats it quite seriously. It's the ONLY book in which a "solution" involves time travel, as far as I'm aware. Great, great themes in that one-- as long as your child is prepared to manage the darker themes inherent in the era, and the topics of, say, The Blitz.

Based on your comment about Homer's Odyssey, she might like more prose-based literature or mythology. As an added bonus, mythology is a terrific segue into discussions about history, culture, geography, and religion. These have been family favourites at our house for a few years.

If she has dystopian leanings, Lord of the Flies might not be a far reach.

For humour, Wilde's The Canterville Ghost is delightfully wry since you included Earnest.

This is just a comment, definitely not saying don't read these at this age... but this is the place in reading where we definitely bumped into a "gifted gotcha" - my ds was way ahead in reading ability and was able to read high school and above level material while in early elementary. I gave him a lot of classics to read because I really wanted him to experience them... Animal Farm was a book he loved and read more than once... at home, during early- to mid-elementary school. During middle school Animal Farm was part of the curriculum, and it went over ok, because he was in a school with integrated studies, passionate and engaging teachers, in a class with other high ability and high-level-thinking students so there was a lot of deep thinking and discussion going on. Then in high school his first year English class (a class that was restricted to highly gifted students) read Animal Farm again... and by then.. ds was done with it

FWIW, his middle school teachers also noted that over the years they'd been frustrated that they felt they couldn't or shouldn't offer classics that their highly capable students were ready to read and would be interested in because those same books would be read again in high school, and they were receiving feedback from students and parents that the students didn't really appreciate that second (or third... or more) go-round in high school. That didn't mean they weren't able to pull together a program in middle school with insightful challenging literature, they just didn't focus on classics.

polarbear

When I was in high school and we did a group read of a book I had read years before, I was able to substitute a book that I hadn't read yet and do parallel assignments (that I often wrote myself) related to it. You might want to look into that as an option when you get into this situation, polarbear.

It sounds like the middle school teachers need to have a dialog with the high school teachers and divvy up the books in an appropriate way. It's not like there's a shortage of classics.

That reminds me, MegMeg, you guys might also enjoy some Anthony Trollope, if you're not intimidated by thick books. Start with The Warden and/or Barchester Towers and see if you get hooked.

Thanks everyone for the lovely ideas!