Literature and Twaddle

In addition to our Yom HaAzmaut books, we have done lots of other fun reading as well.  I picked up some astronomy books for our new unit and Froggy found some as well while I was browsing.  She chose My Friend, the Starfinder.  From the cover, it looked like it was a book about constellations but it is not.  It is twaddle describing a young girl's relationship with an older neighbor.  Unfortunately Froggy loves it.

Frequently I am not fond of Froggy's choices.  She often picks twaddle like the Rainbow Fairies.  Her motivation for going to the library is new Fairy books.  She is limited in how many she can get each week but always wants more.  I justify allowing her to read these books because she will also of her own choosing read books that are not twaddle.  I like mind candy at times so I suppose she should be allowed some as well.

For instance, she also chose Keeping The Promise.  I found this book at the used booksale at  the Day School.  I put it on the shelf planning to read it with Froggy in a year or so.  The story is about the Holocaust and extremely well written from the perspective of a survivor.  However, it shows a more vivid image of life in a concentration camp than I had intended to share at this point which is why I had tucked it away.  Froggy found it and read it several times commenting how great a book it was. 

This week, we also started some practice in reading out loud.  I did not teach Froggy to read so we never had that time when she regularly read to me.  So now she is reading Charlotte's Web to me.  When we started I set a few ground rules for the process.  I explained to her that this book was special and she was not allowed to read it unless she was reading it to me the same way Abba does not read our family book unless we are all there.  I also reminded her to ask if she comes across a word she does not understand.  Our first session was such a success that I had to make her stop after two chapters because we needed to go do other things.  The hardest part of it for Froggy is not getting caught up in the story and forgetting to use her voice.