This Book Is Doing Its Job!

It's a tricky thing ... keeping boys engaged in, challenged, and excited by reading as they get older and start moving away from the realm of typical picture books.

I've written along these lines before ... earlier this year in my post "Boy + Reading ...". And, recently, author PJ Hoover wrote about the subject in her post "Why Boys Aren't Reading".

For our 7-year old reader, the challenge is in finding books that have the unique ability to help him grow as a reader, but also appeal to his interests and his enjoyment of pictures and illustrations.

Just the right combination of the above equals a much less frustrated little man and a more willing and eager reader.

While he very much enjoys action/adventure and animal-related stories, his true love continues to be anything under the category of Transportation. From rescue vehicles to race cars to semi-trailers to construction machines, he is completely and utterly enamored.

This weekend, he told us that he wanted to buy another vehicle book, and he agreed to do so with his own spending money.

So, after a patience-teaching wait of three days from the time he first started chatting us up about it, we headed to Barnes & Noble. We found the section that included all the vehicle-related books within his age range, and told him to look through the books and decide which one he wanted to purchase.

In the midst of helping little sister pick out a book (because, of course, she had to bring her spending money too!), we looked back to find our son sitting on the floor, surrounded by four open books, pouring over each of them, intently trying to decide which he would be taking home. What a wonderful sight!

He settled on the above-pictured Big Book of Construction Machines, created by Parachute Press and published by the fabulous DK Publishing, Inc. The book has an age range of 7-10 years of age, which means it is perfect for helping him progress in his reading. But, the most wonderful thing is that he can't put it down. He reads it in the car and during moments of downtime; he reads it for school-required reading time; he reads it with his nighttime book-light after we've tucked him in to bed; and, today, he took it to school to show his teacher and friends.

Now that is a book that is doing its job!