At CheezWaster’s school, in an effort to get the kids to read more, the principal has initiated a Reading Challenge. IF the kids at the school read 1,000,000 pages by the end of the year, he will dress up like a gorilla and read them stories from the roof of the school while they have a pizza party. Sounds goofy, right? Not to a bunch of elementary school kids. They love the idea. And man are they motivated to read! They want pizza and a gorilla reading them stories! Each day, we keep track of the title of the book and the number of pages we read together, as CheezWaster can’t yet read on his own - though we are working on that through this exercise as well. We just submitted his first list of pages and the grand total was…………………drum roll please…………………….1065! Each time a student hands in a list of pages, their name is announced over the loud speaker for the entire school to hear and they are given a coupon for a free sundae at Applebees! SWEET! And you have no idea how proud CheezWaster was!
I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a reader myself and I’ve never been ashamed to admit that. I have very poor vision and I’m very near sighted. Reading is somewhat exhausting for me. With my contacts, I have to hold the book out a mile away. Without my contacts, I have to hold the book to my nose. Yes, I know you are thinking the dreaded B word, but bifolcals? Not to mention, I don’t have a lot of time to read. I feel like I always have to go back to catch up and then I just wind up reading the same few passages over and over. I’m more of a magazine girl. I like reading them during my commute on the bus. I can get my info. They are short and to the point and each month I get to read about something new. On occasion, though, there comes along a great read like Ancient Awakening or its sequel Ancient Enemies that I just can’t put down. I force myself and for that it just has to be good. But, I want my kids to read. I want them to like books, the way my husband, the man who can finish a book in one night, likes books. And so far, this reading challenge has been just the thing to do that.
One comment to publishers though - what the heck happened to page numbers? Do you know how many books no longer have page numbers? Take a look? Especially at kids’ books. You’ll be surprised! I have spent many a night recently counting pages in books.
