People sometimes assume my daughter has read my books. She's five and a half. She hasn't read a page of them, and she won't for years. Shadow Choice is written for young adults: a city where every clock stops at 11:59, a boy with a notebook, a door under an Academy. It isn't a bedtime story for someone whose feet don't reach the floor.
People seem to expect a writer's child to come with her mother's books already installed. I don't expect that. If she reads them one day, I want it to be because she found them, not because they were waiting on a shelf with my name on the spine.
Reading, before reading
At five and a half, reading is still mostly something a grown-up does out loud. The words belong to the adult. The story belongs to the child. That division is easy to rush, and I think it's worth protecting for as long as it lasts.
Most of what gets written about early reading is about sounding out, sight words and levels. Those matter. Underneath them is a simpler thing no worksheet can teach: wanting to know what happens next. A child who wants to know will put up with a lot of hard words to find out. A child who doesn't will find a hundred reasons to stop.
The one thing I'd call a trick
If there's a trick in any of this, it's the same one I lean on as a writer: lead with a question, not an explanation. Shadow Choice opens on a minute that shouldn't exist, because a reader of any age will follow a question further than a lesson. A picture book that asks something works the same way at five as a mystery does at thirteen.
When you read aloud, stop just before a page turn and ask what they think is on the other side. Don't correct the guess. The wanting is the point, not the answer.
That's the whole trick. It isn't clever, and it won't work every night. It keeps the door open, and at five and a half, an open door is enough.
What I hope for her
Not that she becomes a reader because she's supposed to. Not that she reads my books. I hope that at some point she finds one book she can't put down, and that nobody is timing her when she does.
That's the idea behind ALMA too: a person saying “I read this, and this is what I thought,” and then trusting you to find your own way in. I'd like my daughter to meet books like that.
On the evenings that pull a family apart, and small ways back: The Night I Realized We Were All Home
If your child is older
If you have an older child who says they hate reading, Shadow Choice was written with them in mind: short, seven chapters, a question on the first page. If your child is five, like mine, put it on a high shelf and read them something with pictures tonight. It'll keep.
What age is Shadow Choice for?
It's written for young adult readers. It isn't meant as a read-aloud for small children.
Has your daughter read it?
No. She's five and a half. One day, maybe. I'm not in a hurry.
One day she'll pick up a book that isn't meant for her yet, the way children do. Maybe it'll be one of mine. Maybe it won't. Either way, I'll want to hear what she thought.
I read, I choose, and I write about the books that stay with me. I also write The Keeper Chronicles.
Raising readers, one week at a time.
Once a week: a short personal note, one article about reading or family life, one practical idea to try, and a question you can answer just by replying. One email a week, never a sales pitch.
No comments yet. Be the first to say something.
