Are you a reader or a non reader?

Do you devour books quickly and have a stack waiting their turn?

Are you one that it feels painful to read?  Someone like me, whose brain wanders easily, looses

their place, has a hard time decoding some words?

Here at our house, we are evenly divided between avid reader and "it takes a lot of work" to get through a book.  Am happy to say, however, I may soon be the only one who struggles with reading.  Our oldest seems to be catching the bug!

I will gladly be a loner in that area, in order to see our son read, love to pick up a book, and want to stay up late reading.  He may never be a speed reader, but if there is a love for reading, the speed will naturally come.  Anyway, was totally pleased to here, "Mom, I've finished this Hardy Boy book and need the next one!"  We need to get to the library soon!  It warms my heart to know the series has started over again.  We began, originally, sometime in 2008.  At the time of this post, not sure what number book we were on, but they were so much smaller then.  Now, Mr. Thing One is over 5'6", slender and a teenager.  It took us about 4 years to get through the books (see here).  Wonder how long it will take Thing One to get through the books?

 

Monumentous Moment Past

A big thing came and passed!  Didn't even photograph the occasion.   It just came and went without a good bye.  How sad!

Yup!  That is what happened about October 28th, 2012, if I could even remember the date correctly.  We finished up the last Hardy Boys in the 58 book series.  Don't even recall when we began, but it had been at least four years in the making!  Had every intention of taking pictures of the boys in laundry baskets.  Odd thing, I know, but one of my first mentions of Hardy Boys on the blog I posted pictures of them in the baskets.  Wow, how they have changed in 4 years.

Time to find a new series!
 

Chapter Books, Reading List, and An end

Back in June or so, I complied a list of classical books that we just had not gotten to with the boys. Some were geared toward our youngest age bracket, some our oldest, some were to just finish a series we'd started years ago.

I've never been an avid reader! I probably had vision issues and some of my dyslexic problems played into not picking up books, for fun, often.  As a result, reading with our two was difficult. As our oldest struggles with reading, I'd decided that I needed to make a better effort to show him how to love reading, by reading.

What has transpired was the compilation of my reading list and theirs.  Since then, we have listened to or read 16 books off their list since the first part of July.  For myself, I read about 4 books over the summer.  That is huge for me.  Lately, I've been picking up books I started awhile ago and never finished.  FWIW ~ I've picked up Ann Voskamp's "1,000 Gifts" again, so I am making a conscience effort to work on my 1,000 gift's list (check out my tab and come back often, hope to add 2 or 3 a day).

Anyhoot,  few days ago, I download a free copy of "Island of the Blue Dolphins" (a book I'd wanted to read in elementary school but never did; not sure why) and yesterday I picked up book 58 in the Hardy Boy Series. Feeling almost giddy about both. One because I've wanted to read it, but never had. The other because the series is almost finished. Never would have thought we'd finish this series and we might just be finished by beginning of November!
 

Hardy Boys

Not sure when be began reading "The Hardy Boys" to our boys.  It honestly feels like we've been reading these books to them forever.  Know that isn't true ~ we had begun by December 2008 though.  Here's a post from then with the boys in laundry baskets!  Don't think we'll be getting many more photo's like those.

Anyway, we've been reading number 45 "The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge" since yesterday.  The boys and I got through a large number of chapters this afternoon and added a few more with Kevin this evening.  We might just have the series finished before the end of the summer ~ all 58 of them!

Truths about the Hardy Boys:

1. They don't age ~ they are still 17 and 18, even though there has been an obvious passage of a few years.
2. Chet shows up in every book, hungry.
3. Chet has a new hobby in every book.
4. More often than not, someone gets knocked out by the second chapter (sometimes within the first few pages).
5. There are always 20 chapters.
6. Just about every chapter is a cliff hanger, except for 20 (obviously!).

Pick one up, if you like, you may just like the series.

Laundry Basket Boys

Some things in life never seem to change. We'd finished folding laundry - last week maybe - and were sitting around reading "Hardy Boys". It didn't seem to take long before the boys found their way into the laundry basics. They were totally content, just sitting there, listening. Guess they like small places. Found a photo from about four years ago. Then, they could share a basic. To funny!!