Last week me and my kids were looking for a movie to watch. We had just gone to see Transformers on the week, watched Hot Rod (I know but I have boys) and sat through Star Dust (one of my favorite movies). So I took out Nicholas Nickleby. I had bought it a couple of years ago but never watched it due to the fact that I have two boys and a little girl.All three kids looked at the movie and scrunched up their faces “What’s that?”
“It’s a movie based on a Charles Dickens novel.”
“Whose that?”
After I pulled myself off the ground and got my breath back, I proceeded to tell them who he was. Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol. They still shook their heads. So I forced them to watch the movie. I sold it on the fact that Anne Hathaway was in the movie but low and behold they sat, watched it and actually liked it. (the boys did, girl disappeared outside half way through, maybe 7 is too young)
Now with them being off school and me working my husband has them reading for 30 minutes a day, which I find funny because he doesn’t read at all. Anyway my daughter reads her books and younger son is reading Artemis Fowl. Older son had a harder time choosing a book because like his dad, he doesn’t like to read. So my hubby chose The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to read.
The first night at dinner we asked each child to tell us what they read about. Older son had a hard time telling us what was going on. He said that it would be like me writing down what I did all day and then a hundred years from now someone reading it. But the next day when I got home from work, he told me he’d just read two more chapters and was actually finding it interesting.
Maybe there is hope yet to teach my children some things about literature and remind myself at the same time why I love to read and write.
PS: On the writing front, I decided to plug ahead and not look back. I’m now on Chapter 4 and wrote 3000 words this week.
6 comments:
Congratulations on 3000 words! That's awesome!!
Good for you! I haven't written much at all lately. Only one of my three kids likes to read (the girl). It's like pulling teeth to get the other two to do it. I hope as the get older, they will start to enjoy it.
I love Charles Dickens. He is one of my top classics choices. Mutual Friend is on my reading list, which is also another great movie, by the way. I bet your sons were intrigued by the schoolboys and the evil school master in Nicolas Nickelby.
Chantele: I must be on a roll because I just wrote another 2000 this morning.
LW: I'm exactly the same. The one loves to read, the other two really could do without it. Hopefully this summer reading program will change their mind.
Jessie: I'll try Mutual friend and yes the evil school master had them riveted.
Good for you! 3k!
We read in my family, a lot, even though the kids are young young, but the closest we have come to a classic yet is Goodnight Moon :)
(we did Ice Age 3 yesterday!)
Jennifer: It's good to start somewhere. We read all the time to our older son and maybe not as much to our youngest. I need to do better.
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