It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update on my Kids’ Review
series, so here we are. For an introduction to this series, information isavailable in this post which provides a good bit of context.
Hebop turned 9 last month and continues with an, at times,
voracious love of reading. We are slowly letting him read through the Harry
Potter books and he just finished up The
Goblet of Fire in a fury last weekend that saw him reading for hours at
time (this is a kid who never stops moving, so to see him so still is
shocking). He has since started the Percy
Jackson books next – he gave them a shot a year or more ago but wasn’t
terribly interested and just not quite ready. I think he’s matured enough now
that it may be different this time around. We still read aloud with Hebop at
times, but he’s mostly solo now, which was quite impressive give the size of The Goblet of Fire. Hebop can have a
short attention span at times as he jumps around from the likes of Goosebumps to Spirit Animals to Diary of a
Wimpy Kid. For his birthday he got some fiction and nonfiction soccer books
and it’ll be interesting to see when he gives those a try and what he thinks.
Arty turned 6 earlier this month and is thick in the transition
from shorter books to chapter stories. She recently left behind Magic Treehouse books – she still can
get scared/anxious with some books, and the later Magic Treehouse books can be surprising tense at times with a fair
amount of implied death and destruction. So we’ve started in on Critter Club and Ivy & Bean books. She’s enjoying both – especially Ivy & Bean. The love of Ivy & Bean has introduced quite a
few conversations about good choices and following rules. We’ve now read a
couple of the Critter Club books and
the first three of Ivy and Bean. Both
series are working great for Arty. A month or two ago, we read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone
with her – she loved it, but also has nightmares about Voldemort (tales of
later books from Hebop are no help here). She watched the movie, but we’ve
backtracked and will wait another year before doing more to give time for the
nightmares to go away.
As a family we’ve been reading aloud the Septimus Heap books. So far we’ve read the first two (Magyk and Flyte) in the series (the kids’ will get the full series for
Christmas). I think it’s probably safe to call them Harry Potter knock-offs, but they are a lot fun and both kids enjoy
them. I find it surprising that Arty doesn’t seem to be bothered by the more
tense and serious parts of these books when she was by Harry Potter, but that’s how it works sometimes. So, I can easily
recommend these books – as always, check to see how they match up with your own
positions on age-appropriateness. I often use Common Sense Media as an initial
tool to help with that.
Septimus
Heap by Angie Sage
Book 1: Magyk Amazon
Percy
Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Book 1: The Lightning
Thief Amazon
Goosebumps
by R.L. Stine
Book 1: Night of the Living
Dummy Amazon
Spirit
Animals
Book 1: Wild Born by
Brandon Mull Amazon
Diary of
a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Book 1: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Amazon
Critter
Club by Callie Barkley
Book 1: Amy and the Missing Puppy Amazon
Ivy
& Bean by Annie Barrows
Book 1: Ivy & Bean Amazon
The
Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne
Book 1: Dinosaurs Before
Dark Amazon
