Find Great Books

You can’t start too early to instill love of reading and learning in children. Fill their environment with great books and let them choose having reads whenever they want. Where to begin? Check our Preschool-Kindergarten booklist for ideas and visit your local library to check out any of the titles. You can check many titles out at a time, enough to fill some book baskets and bookshelves throughout your home. Most libraries have story times as well that you can time your visits to hear a wonderful title being read and inspire even more finds. Check out books relating to family and kids’ interests or similar issues that your family is having such as Harry the Dirty Dog or Go Dog Go for dog lovers or Madeline if you like Paris, or are facing a hospital stay, Ira Sleeps Over for first sleep over issues, Alexander, Who’s Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to Move for those having to move, or Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words for those who want to build their vocabulary. Focus on your child’s favorites and yours, a great way to read enthusiastically. Look for the new and fun and funny. Bob Dylan’s Man Gave Names to All the Animals has provided hours of fun for kids and The Cat in the Hat is still a classic fun book that never loses its charm. The movie lends itself to more fun and comparison when asking the right questions.

Ask the Right Questions to Spark Motivation and Build Comprehension

Rent the movies of the books you read to your children and let them tell you how the movie is different from the book to begin to instill comprehension and critical thinking. Make connections to the places, plot, characters and themes to the book. Questions such as: Who do you know that is like a character in the story? Or What place have you been that is like a place in the story? connect the read to our personal life. Internalizing how to connect to stories in this way maximizes comprehension skills before children learn to read. Any of the Kindergarten-Preschool books can be enjoyed and connected to with the whole family. A family read of Miss Nelson Has a Field Day had 4 year old Lisa remark : “Let’s go to our Lulu’s” a family favorite restaurant with the same name as the one in the book (place). Charlie, older brother, said that UCLA needs a coach like the story after their great loss on Saturday to USC. (theme) For many more questions that work for any book and can incorporate the whole family if you have 3,4 and 5 year olds, see The Preschool Kindergarten Edition of The Book Club Game.

What if the goal of every book club was to act on gleaned inspirations from their reading to make the world a better place? Wow! With all the Book Clubs throughout the world, certainly this could make a significant difference in promoting peace for all. In choosing enlightening reads Book Clubs can make a difference and change in its members creating empathy, compassion and perhaps new behavior and actions through awareness of another culture’s traditions, struggles, unique paradigms, and societal dilemmas.

Titles like Snowflower and the Secret Fan, The Kite Runner, Man’s Search for Meaning, Night, Cutting for Stone, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Infinite Plan, Q & A, Same Kind of Different, Where the Heart Is, Strength In What Remains, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, just to name a few, change us for the better with awareness of plights outside our worlds, yet so close and connected universally. We enter another world to cheer on our character heroes through their obstacles leaving us moved and changed. We talk about our enlightenment at our book club meetings sometimes feeling compelled to act somehow on our new felt passions.

So, what if we took the inspiration from these reads to a new level and based on them made a change or took an action to make the world a better place? Some Book Club Questions to focus on in actualizing gleaned inspiration might include: What in this story can inspire you to help a friend or relative in a new or special way? How might this story inspire you to make a positive change in your life? How might something in this story inspire you to make your classroom, home or workplace better? How can something in this story inspire you to make your community or world a better place?

If we take that leap from our great reads to focus on a few of these questions and share our answers of personal actions we will inspire each other to grow in new ways. Add to that a group action of charity or good will to touch those less fortunate for each read and voilà we have added a greater purpose and new meaning to our book club with a special connection to the book that will be long remembered. If those actions just happen to become contagious, oh, the possibilities, endless! So, please share how your Book Club Reads have inspired making this a better world. In Blogs to come we will share: Great Reads to Good Deeds!