What is your gifted child reading? - Page 3

[ollyoxenfree]

Re: war stories - I just stumbled upon this exhibition, Once Upon a Wartime - Classic War Stories for Children at the Imperial War Museum in London, England. The featured books include War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, which has also recently been produced on stage and in film. The others are Carrie's War (Nina Bawden), The Machine Gunners (Robert Westall), The Silver Sword (Ian Serraillier) and Little Children (Bernard Ashley). 

I'm not familiar with any of them, so I can't recommend them or comment on suitable ages. I've read other Morpurgo books and he's a fine author, but I haven't read War Horse. 

Another wartime children's book (trilogy actually) is The Guests of War (The Sky is Falling, Looking at the Moon and The Lights Go On Again) by Kit Pearson, about a sister and brother who leave WWII London to stay in Canada for the duration. 

[Mom31]

WE finally got library cards- its quite exciting- ds ordered 2 horrible history books that interested him.  I hope he likes them- not sure when they will come in.

I am going to write up the ones you listed and take that list to the library to. He was in heaven at the library.

AWESOME! 

So excited for all the money it will save us on books and another special thing ds and I can do together.

[heatherdeg]

I'm so glad to have found this thread.  Mine just turned 8yo and has gone through the whole HP series, the only three "Secret Zoo" books (dying for more to come out), all 10 "The 39 Clues" books, and have moved on to the Narnia and Percy Jackson series, but he reads at the speed of light--so I always need more.  THANK YOU!

[mylilmonkeys]

I popped into this forum to ask a similar question.  My 7 yo's teacher just evaluated him as reading at an eighth grade level.  She's put him into his own reading group, given him sixth grade level content questions, and he asked me exactly twice for help throughout the entire book.  He's scoring equally high in math, but I'm not sure what they're planning to do about that.  My kids attend a very small Catholic school, and 3,4,5 is team taught, so I think next year he'll have plenty of opportunity to be challenged.  Anyway, thanks for the wonderful suggestions.  I'm familiar with some and some are new, it's just hard to know what they are ready for when they read so far above age level.  

[chenchen]

Originally Posted by KCMichigan 

DDs (6) are reading "Moongobble and Me" series and really really enjoying it! It is silly, fun, and has great language.

Thanks for this!  We've never heard of these.  Putting them on DD's library list.

[Snoopy281]

Mine are totally in love with the Hunger Games series. They are 2nd and 5th.. the content is pretty teenish, but I read it tooand talk them through any questional parts. (Killing) they are both very good with fi tion vs reality. But if your child is sensitive to fiction I would not. Recomend it. On the other hand, if he can handle it the vocab is great!

[Bekka]

We just started a new series that looks exciting to us:  the first book is Magyk, in the Septimus Heap series.  We are having a hard time finding the other books, but we'll keep looking.

In my previous post I didn't mention that we also enjoy the Ranger's Apprentice series--all of us.  It's a bit predictable vocab and fluff, but a good size and totally fine for anyone who's reading HP.

AND, LOTR is an epic story.  It is structurally beautiful (considering he took so many years to craft it) and it is like reading poetry when read aloud, not just the songs.  DH is way more patient and finds joy in doing that than I do, but I love to listen, and I did do a few chapters.  DH read all of LOTR to our older kids and we haven't yet found another older series we're excited about hearing aloud.  If you don't like doing that, you might listen to it on CD or whatever.  It took us over a year (with our busy schedules) to finish all of it.

[moominmamma]

My kids (right down to the then-8-year-old) read the Hunger Games books last year. I pre-read the books and certainly wouldn't have allowed my youngest at them if she'd been at all sensitive. Recently she's showing a bit more sensitivity, not so much to violence, but to creepy surrealistic suspense and to the emotional content of particularly poignant stories. I'd have been a bit more hesitant to let her at them this year than last. Her siblings are all off to see the movie tonight, 2000 miles away, and I'm really glad opening weekend for the movie came at precisely this point. I would have over-ruled her request to see the movie, something I've never ever done before. But the point is moot -- we're hours from a theatre, and her teenaged siblings will have already seen it by the time they get back. Phew!

My younger two have loved the Septimus Heap books. We haven't had any difficulty finding them, but we have to order all our books on-line anyway because of where we live. 

Wanted to take a moment, since Bekka suggested listening to LOTR on CD, to recommend two amazing audiobooks. 

The first is Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) narrated by the author and with Full-Cast Audio for the dialogue. I found the female protagonist's voice a little grating at the outset, but I got used to its raw childishness very quickly. And really the whole thing is beautifully suited to full-cast production. It's more like a radio play than a novel read aloud. And I think the themes and layers and cleverly realized alternate world, the word-play and the philosophical flavour of the books are particularly well-suited for deep-thinking gifted kids.

The other is not really children's or YA literature but my 9-year-old has really enjoyed it and I don't think there's much in it that parents of bright not-particularly-sensitive pre-teens would object to. It's "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay. The story is a little unbelievable at times, the child protagonist over-the-top precocious, the events too coincidental, but it's nicely crafted. And holy toledo, the narration on this one is simply flawless. It's set in South Africa in the 1940's, and the narrator does the Afrikaans, English, Irish, Zulu, German, East Indian and Russian-Georgian accents of scores of characters with amazing authenticity and believability, all with excellent pacing and expressiveness.

Dd9 is currently reading Kenneth Oppel's "Silverwing" series (four books). I read it aloud to my older kids years ago and really enjoyed it. She is completely rapt.

Miranda

[LynnS6]

popping back in to say that our son loved A Series of Unfortunate Events when he was in 4th grade. They're very tongue in cheek.

War Horse is another good one.

The Penderwicks + 2 follow up books

The Boxcar Children -- dd reads those in under an hour, so they're not particularly challenging, but the plot appeals to my kids.

Around the World in 80 days is a good one too, though dated in some of its attitudes.

Dd is busy finishing the 4th Warrior Cat series and is re-reading Harry Potter. I have no idea what we're going to do when she runs out of those.

Edited by LynnS6 - 3/25/12 at 11:31pm

[meemee]

Originally Posted by ollyoxenfree 

DD -  It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini, about a suicidal teenager on a psychiatric ward

i just read this last week AND watched the movie too. loved both of them. for me i loved that while it wasnt fully autobiographical he has been in there for the 5 day watch. he has a pretty amazing life - Ned that is. 

[Cassidy68]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

Dd9 is currently reading Kenneth Oppel's "Silverwing" series (four books). I read it aloud to my older kids years ago and really enjoyed it. She is completely rapt.

Miranda

My son absolutely loved that series (I read them aloud to him and enjoyed them myself). So good. We're reading Raider's Ransom now-- by Emily Diamand-- fabulous read!
 

[FarmerBeth]

moominmama: We all listened to the same "His Dark Materials Series" audiobook.  Wonderful, and a lifesaver on long car drives.  Not specifically for kids, but my 11 year old was really (fanatically, even) into the audiobooks for Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series.  We got them from the public library.  Sometimes audiobooks are a great alternative for those times when reading is a little tiring (even great readers have those moments) or for when you want that auditory input.  My older two kids sometimes like to speak parts in books as if it was a play, and I think the audiobooks were great inspiration to this.  My daughter read the Hunger Games but my oldest son listened on audiobook.  He'll read (in book form) non fiction for hours, with no difficulties, but he says sometimes with fiction he just wants to listen and picture it all in his head.

[moominmamma]

We have spent immense amounts of time in the minivan over the past few years getting the kids to music activities. Mostly we're driving mountain passes, making the roads winding with lots of changes of speed. My kids tend to get car-sick reading under those conditions. Audiobooks have been sanity savers for both me and the kids. We listen to a lot of podcasts as well.

Miranda

[aishamama]

I'm loving this thread.  My son is very bored with the stories he is reading in school. I bought the next grade books thinking they might have some better concepts but he still says they are boring.  Maybe I need to grab some copies of these fantasy books; they sound much more interesting than what he read this week about a robot in school. 

[My3sons78]

I second Magic Tree House series. My 6 year old Kindergartener can't quite read them independently, but we enjoy them as read-alouds. We take turns reading parts he can read, and I fill in the blanks.

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

We have spent immense amounts of time in the minivan over the past few years getting the kids to music activities. Mostly we're driving mountain passes, making the roads winding with lots of changes of speed. My kids tend to get car-sick reading under those conditions. Audiobooks have been sanity savers for both me and the kids. We listen to a lot of podcasts as well.
Miranda

We're working our way through the Newbery Award books available on CD at the library for our car reading.  We're finding it's an excellent way to get the kids out of any reading ruts (more Warriors books, really?) and the quality is such that DH and I enjoy them as much as the kids.  It also gives me a means to discuss story structure and literary tools with the kids (my 9 year old DD in particular).  Things like foreshadowing, climax, allegory, etc.  It's hard to discuss these things when I'm not reading along with her since she doesn't allow much time between beginning and ending any book, and she's getting to the point where she's needing to pick up on these things to progress in her understanding of literature.

Lately we've listened to:  A Door in the Wall, 21 Balloons, A Wrinkle in Time, Cricket in Times Square, Centurburg Tales, A View from Saturday and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankwiler, and Savvy.

[MJB]

My 6 yr. old 1st grader is about to finish the Harry Potter series, and is also reading the Rick Riordan books (The Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and "The Name of this Book is Secret" at school. He was recently assessed at a 7th grade reading level but his interest level is pretty typical for his grade. He really, really loved Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander series but I won't let him read the Hunger Games.

My oldest son isn't gifted but he loves to read. He's been reading all Rick Riordan's books as well and read some Narnia books and the Hunger Games recently. 

[aishamama]

Can I ask you about HP?   Is the content ok for this age generally?  I haven't even peeked in these books but am hoping to stimulate my son more and get him interested in other topics / genre if he likes it.  So I just wanted to ask what you feel about the content and language. 

Originally Posted by MJB 

My 6 yr. old 1st grader is about to finish the Harry Potter series, and is also reading the Rick Riordan books (The Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and "The Name of this Book is Secret" at school. He was recently assessed at a 7th grade reading level but his interest level is pretty typical for his grade. He really, really loved Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander series but I won't let him read the Hunger Games.

My oldest son isn't gifted but he loves to read. He's been reading all Rick Riordan's books as well and read some Narnia books and the Hunger Games recently. 

[whatsnextmom]

Originally Posted by aishamama 

Can I ask you about HP?   Is the content ok for this age generally?  I haven't even peeked in these books but am hoping to stimulate my son more and get him interested in other topics / genre if he likes it.  So I just wanted to ask what you feel about the content and language. 

Butting in here lol. Language isn't an issue in HP but content will depend on the sensitivity of your own child. My eldest read 1 and 2 when she was 5 but she put book 3 down a few chapters in. It was just "too dark and full of despair" in her words. She picked them up again around 9 and had no issues with them at all at that point. DS wasn't interested in them until about 7 and he never had any issues with the content.

[Geofizz]

Another issue about HP is that my kids don't have the context for understanding a lot of parts of it.  Fundamentally, the idea of a boarding school is foreign. 

This hasn't phased my 6 year old, but it was a primary sticking point for my DD at age 7. 

We've decided my 6 year old is not yet ready for the themes past book 3.  While he can do the reading, the content is not appropriate for this particular child.  He dreams vividly and readily incorporates stories and images into his dreams.  (A point first discovered after letting him watch a NOVA on the Chilean Mine Rescue.)  While I think my 9 year old can handle the themes now, she is resisting.  I suspect she realizes that at some level she isn't quite ready.  Percy Jackson was no big deal though. 

We'll likely reevaluate in another few months or so for DS.  He wants to read the next books.  I might let him read them this summer if he promises to not read after 12 pm or so.