Attention Parents: Try sitting on your kid in order to make them read in the summertime!
Aside from having to wake up at 7:30am, something I haven’t had to do since the early nineties, going on WABC was a really fun time. I met Jane O’Connor, Scott Westerfeld, and his wife, Justine Larbalestier, who’s also a very talented YA writer, in the WABC Green Room. The room, of course, wasn’t even remotely green, but it had some comfy sofas and we sat around chatting about the toils of publishing and the summer reading tips we would be mentioning.
Eventually we were called into the studio where the filming was taking place live. No time for rehearsal though. We all turned to one another, quickly doing the mandatory spinach-in-the-teeth check. Then the crew scrambled to mic me during the ten second countdown…and we were LIVE! Check it out.
From what I’ve been hearing, getting kids to read during the summertime is even more of a challenge than usual. When the sun is shining and the weather is gorgeous, reading in the darkened bowels of your bedroom is the last thing you want to do (unless, of course, you’re a ten-year old version of me, and your folks are trying to drag you outside to participate in some team sports) So, when preparing for the WABC spot there was a lot of brainstorming on some fun and creative ways to make reading more of an event to look forward to and less of a dreaded chore. Take a look at the tips below, and please feel free to write in and suggest your own summer tips. Or if you’re a kid, drop a line and say which tip seems like fun or which tip sounds totally lame!!
For Readers ages 3-8
Let’s get dramatic! Turn the book into playtime by having your child act out some of the pictures on the pages. Gather their friends together for a group reading of their favorite books, assign characters to each kid, and dress up in costumes. Once you’ve got a polished performance down, name your new acting troupe after a random Macbeth character and bring the play to off-off-off-off Broadway 
Build a Book Castle- Yes, it’s sort of like Legos, but with books. Everyone in the family gets to add a book they’ve just finished to the castle until they, hopefully, have a big monstrosity nearly reaching their living room ceiling. At that point, take it down and start a new book castle from scratch.
It’s Party Time! Band together with other parents (or your reading group) and organize a party. If the kids read a certain number of pages, they get to attend. If they read more pages they get prizes or special activities at the party. Tie it in with a birthday party, a 4th of July barbecue, or an existing event.
Check out the local library- Introduce your kids to the library. Most have “story time” during the summer. Let them pick out books and sign up for their very own library card! Seriously, the library is awesome and free! And they have so many great programs.
For Readers ages 9-12
Book Swap! Gather all of the kids in your building or neighborhood in the park. Each kid can bring a couple of their favorite reads and trade them with each other; like we used to do with baseball cards or comic books. Make it a regular meeting to look forward. Also, it’s great to recycle books by sharing them instead of throwing them out or letting them sit on your shelf forever.
Time for Slime! Have all of the kids in your household or in the neighborhood enter into a summer-long read-off. The winner has a choice. They can either get a nice prize or they get to dunk the person who has read the fewest pages in a vat of home made goo (And at the beginning of the contest, all the kids band together to decide what ingredients make up the goo- Can anyone say ketchup, melted ice cream, and stale milk! YUCK!). So, even if a contestant isn’t going to win, they can at least try to read enough pages to not come in last. The winner has the bucket of goo in one hand and the prize in the other. Everyone is chanting “Goo! Goo!” Which will they choose?
Mix & Match- Encourage your son or daughter to think more creatively, and make up their own stories using characters from the different books they’ve read. What would happen if Anna Smudge gave therapy to Shay from Uglies? What kinds of outrageous things would Fancy Nancy dress up in if she lived in the futuristic setting of So Yesterday?
Participate- After your child reads a book, go online with them and find a place to comment about it: discussion forum, the author’s blog, Facebook, LibraryThing, or help them post a review at Amazon or BN.com. This will get them thinking about what they’ve read and make reading a social function, not a solitary one.
Check out the local bookstore- Go to author signings and readings throughout the summer. Check your local bookstore for their schedule.
Sorry! But school is never really out- Check with teachers before school lets out in May/June for reading incentives when you come back in the Fall. Many schools offer summer book discounts through book fair catalogs.
Readers ages 12 and Up
Bribery! Ah, yes. It still works after all these years. Use things like allowance, time off from chores, TV, chat, and video game time as nice incentives.
Pit them against each other! If they are close in age, whichever sibling reads fewer pages has to do the others’ chores. Now if your kids are far apart in age, it doesn’t work out so well for the older ones because their books are longer. But hey, they should be doing most of the chores anyway. Right? Now, you may ask what to do if you only have one child. Well, you make them compete against you and then they get to do your chores! If they win, you know you’re the one who needs to read more.
Summer destination reading- Read books about or set in the destination of your summer vacation (and if you are coming to NYC read my book, Anna Smudge: Professional Shrink and Scott Westerfeld&
#8217;s So Yesterday since they’re both set there)
YA is not just for the young ones- Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone’s doing it. The line between what adults and kids are reading is beginning to fade significantly. So, read the same book as your son or daughter- For younger kids this is pretty obvious, but for middle-grade and YA there are lots of books that are just as interesting for adults. Even if you aren’t reading together or to each other, come back to talk about the book at key chapters over a meal, a car ride, a cab ride, or while shopping.
Social Networking- In case you haven’t noticed, the modes of communication have changed drastically over the last decade. So, encourage your son or daughter not just to read a book but blog about it, post their thoughts on forums, text friends about certain chapters. Join LibraryThing. It’s like MySpace for books and kids can trade comments, make recommendations, and leave reviews. Excitement is contagious, and reading can be too!
Why am I not looking in the same direction as Jane & Scott? Anyone have any ideas? This picture needs a funny caption.
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