Book Recommendations for 2nd Grade to Middle Schoolers

We're having a book buying night and our lovely librarian (http://twitter.com/l_mabey) has posted a list of book recommendations thought some of you might like. Next up, I need the Spanish language ones. My kids come from a line of avid readers, but have not really picked up that bug themselves, so I am always looking for recommendations.

2^nd – 4^th grade kids who like to laugh:

My Weird School series by Dan Gutman – kids and teachers misbehave just enough to make the books feel slightly naughty, but with lessons learned.  Can’t keep these on the shelf at school.

Time Warp Trio series by Jon Sciescza – similar concept to Magic Treehouse, only with dry humor  and mild sarcasm that budding ironists will enjoy.

Justin Case series (2 books so far) by Rachel Vail – Justin is a school-nervous worrywart who manages to be engaging and hilarious as he survives recognizable situations at school and with his quirky, loving family.  A great read-aloud for families.

The Riot Brothers series by Mary Amato—two brothers live out their motto of “make something exciting happen every day,” with mischief, a modicum of booger humor, and truly good intentions. 

Moving on to middle school soon?  As the mom of boys ages 10 and 12, she has serious concerns about books that emphasize the crass and cruel side of the tween years, and don’t honor the tender hearts we’ve cultivated in our own kids.  Here are some titles that introduce the middle-school years with respect, humor, and a reasonable dose of reality, best for grades 4 & up:

Origami series by Todd Angleberger – kids trying to navigate confusing friendships and crushes in age-appropriate ways.  I love how these books model self-reflection and show respect for kids’ feelings without appearing to teach a lesson.  

Aldo Zelnick series by Karla Oceanak—Aldo is a talented artist, but can’t decide whether he’s willing to let his non-standard talent shine.   His diverse group of family and friends are featured in his journal-style books that feature text and graphic sections.

The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt.  Set during and just after the Vietnam wars at two different middle & high schools, this pair of titles would be appropriate for 5^th grade and up readers ready for the next level of poignancy and cultural literacy in humorous episodic novels.

Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass.  (California Young Reader Medal, 2011).  Narrated in turns by an appearance-obsessed aspiring model and an isolated, home-schooled astronomy enthusiast, this story of weathering life’s changes is thoughtful and captivating.

Different century, same kids:  historical fiction for accomplished readers.

The Great Brain series by John Fitzgerald.  First published beginning in 1967, these books have stood the test of time.  Harkening back to days when expectations for boys were both rougher (pocketknives, fistfights, never tattling) and stricter (rigorous chores, respect for adults, scrupulous honesty) these tales of two brothers growing up in a small town Utah feature Tom Fitzgerald, a trickster for the ages.  Grades 3 – 5.

The Grandma Dowdell series by Richard Peck—A Long Way from Chicago (1999 Newberry Honor), A Year Down Yonder (2001 Newberry Medal), and A Season of Gifts compose a trilogy set in a veeeery small town in downstate Illinois, where the indefatigable and always unexpected Grandma Dowdel marches to her own drummer, with adventures narrated by the series of young relatives and neighbors who come under her influence.  Best for grades 5 – 8.  

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly.  Eleven-year-old Calpurnia balances the competing influences of a tradition-bound, ladylike mother who worries about her future, and a gender-blind, intellectual grandfather who recognizes her intelligence.   It’ll be hard for our girls to believe there was a time when aspiring to a college education was considered a crazy idea for a girl…this book will highlight how far things have come.

Chains and Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson—these two titles, with the upcoming Ashes, make up the Seeds of America trilogy.  These are usually recommended for grades 6 or 7 and up, but mature 5^th-graders who can handle the dark side of American history will also benefit.  Unsparing detail and meticulous research support Anderson’s tales of African teens, both enslaved and free, finding their way through the tumultuous times of the American Revolution.   May be too intense for sensitive readers, but are well worth the time for kids who want to know more about less-famous aspects of our history.

Pow, right in the kisser

Originally posted on Silicon Valley Moms blog
-------------------------------------------------------------

I read a mommy blog post the other day about how there is no real recess at her daughter’s private school. The school is lovely, but they are not allowed to play with balls or chase boys, and there is such a huge ratio of adult to kid supervision that the kids aren’t really learning how to deal with each other. I nearly choked on my home-brewed coffee, and not just because at the moment I can’t even afford the donation I’m supposed to make to my kids' average scoring public school. Now don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that my kids are allowed to play with balls and run around, but IMHO too many adults isn't the issue at her school.

On our school playground there are the minimum required adults supervising the kids - some hired, some recruited parents, and teachers on a rotating basis.  Some don't seem well-equipped for the job, not that I blame them - I'm not either. (I do realize it once again comes down to money for schools, but from what I've seen the past few years recess and PE are not going to be a priority for schools any time soon.) If I just think about my own kids, one of them hates recess, the other loves it but so far has acquired bruised knees, scraped elbows and a serious bloody nose from a punch to the face. Isn’t it great they are left to their own devices at recess?

Now cuts, scrapes, bruises, even the occasional punch, I don’t have a problem with that. In fact I'm all for play fighting, superhero battles, pro-wrestling moves...it uses up a lot of energy and boy do my son and his friends love it. What concerns me is kids learning their limits need supervision, although I'll admit sometimes what that amounts to in my house is "you need to stop when Keegan gets hurt" or "I need you guys to do something for the next 10 minutes where nobody gets hurt."

My son’s teacher was “ blessed” with 7 (that's one-third), extremely active boys in her class. She confesses she cannot let them get away with the smallest infraction, because it sets up a chain reaction. One of Donovan’s early “goals” was to stop throwing himself on the floor (in his classic WWW move), as it caused the rest of the children to jump on him like a football pile. She’s great though, as she explains her reasoning to them, and understands they are active boys, not evil monsters like a preschool teacher seemed to believe. So naturally she wants them to get that energy out at recess.

One result of limited resources is the kinders are confined to small fenced in playgrounds, and total chaos often ensues. Instead of a rousing game of chase or tackle basketball, they play who gets the ball or slide and who gets left out? It got to the point where the yard duty was literally afraid to watch these kids anymore, and our teacher was attempting to recruit a dad to take small groups out and run them around like a bunch of horses.

Why was she so afraid? That brings us to problem 2, the fighting. They aren't allowed to "horse around" leaving them with extra energy and aggression, and with minimal supervision, small problems escalate. Then you've got a fight, but instead of talking to the culprits to find out what happened, they are sent to office since the lone yard duty can't ignore the other kids. Here's a recent example: Boy 1 left out of game by boy 2 and friends, boy 1 gets mad. Boy 1 pushes boy 2 from behind, boy 2 turns around, boy 1 punches him in nose, boy 2 punches boy 1 in stomach. Both hauled off to principle's office and threatened with suspension, with very little discussion of the incident except between the parents of the offenders (shout-out to my husband who took care of the whole thing and only called me later). The punishment was reduced to spending two days in the office. Unfortunately the plan for the boys to actually play together in the office, which I thought was a decent idea, went awry when, ironically, they were told the sit in chairs quietly for the hour because nobody wanted to supervise their play and they weren't trusted to play on their own.  As a disclaimer, the actual principle was not there that day, and the teacher/activing principle made these decisions.  The principle would likely have spent more time on talking, less on dishing out punishments.

I worry that because these kids have punishments immediately thrust upon them without explanation, they don't really learn the proper responses. What should a kid do who's been left out of a game? What about a kid who's been punched in the nose? Clearly I don't have the answer, and I certainly don't think a fancy private school would solve these problems. I'm just glad my husband was not only able to keep his cool when his son was nearly suspended for defending himself, but also managed to get all the blood out of the "Pizza My Heart" t-shirt.

Obsessing Over Education

Today, Monday November 22 (in under the wire) "has been declared a national Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform. It is a grassroots effort to bring together educators (including parents) to offer their ideas on how to improve America’s public schools" so I wanted to add my voice.  The full list is here.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm pondering taking up a new career in teaching, I'm spurred on by my son's cries of hating school, or it's simply my dad's (he's there to the right) influence, but lately I've become extremely interested in education. My dad keeps handing me excellent books about the state of education in America and ideas for improvement, not to mention making proclamations such as "I'm boycotting Waiting For Superman."

I've been pretty lax about my kids' education.   I stood in a line at 6am to get them into a public Spanish Immersion school, volunteer in class and somehow winded up as a PTA co-Secretary, and figure that's pretty good. I'm lucky, we have the makings for children who will likely do pretty well (whatever that means) - with parents and grandparents with advanced degrees and highly involved in their lives and education. My boys are smart, but seemingly not so "gifted" they act out, they just become bored.

So what's a parent to do? There's been a big hubbub over a certain documentary, but thanks to my father, I've joined the opposite camp, "NOT Waiting for Superman" and in fact recently saw another (non-Hollywood) documentary, "Race to Nowhere," which addressed the high pressure kids are put under to achieve, to get into a top school, get a top job and make a lot of money.  I highly recommend seeing this movie, although I was disappointed by the panel that followed, where one woman said programs that work in wealthy areas like Palo Alto, won't work in poor areas like East Palo Alto.  Ugh!

There was a recent blog post from one of my favorite bloggers about how she wants her children to be more than "just happy" - she wants them to live up to their potential. I'm at the point where I really do want my babies to simply be happy, and while I suspect success and achievement is what will make them happy, it may not be "success" by current standards. Struggling artists, the athletes who barely make a living wage, writers facing their umpteenth rejection letter, I'm betting they may be happier than a cubicle dweller making a decent wage with good benefits. I want my children to take risks, to try new things and fail a lot. They can always go to law school at 40 if they decide money is really what they want (disclaimer, I know not all lawyers make a lot of money.)

Speaking of failure, this is what Neil Postman (currently reading The End of Education) believed is one of the areas missing from today's eduction. Not so much failure itself that is missing, but being rewarded for failure. In an editorial today Tom Friedman spoke about what kids needed in their education "the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate." Neil Postman believes kids also need to learn to argue, to be skeptical and to to be "error detectors" (boy did I get in trouble for that). 

Speaking as the kid always picked last for the debate team (2nd to last for sports, hallelujah), I could not agree more.  I have a hard time arguing my points at work and usually give up, but at least I try, something I would never have done after high school, when the way to a good grade was to agree with the teacher.  In 5th grade I was pissed off when I got a question wrong that began "What do you think...?"  In High School we groaned when our teacher sent a friend who dared argue against the accepted symbolism of Lord of the Rings to the dean.  Who were the "smart" kids?  The one's who knew how to get a good grade or the ones who really understood the book and refused to cave.  I ended up with better grades and at MIT and my friend became a teacher of all things, with the goal of making learning fun, something we rarely experienced.  I hope she hasn't been crushed by the "system."

Tonight I asked the kids if a teacher ever said anything they didn't believe. The answer was no, but I asked what they would do. "Get past it" was their answer, and when I spurred them on to an argument (by proclaiming that Landon Donovan is a better player than Pele ever was) I got an excellent argument and told them so. The boys then laughed and called themselves bullies. Turns out being mean and arguing are lumped together as bullying behavior and that certainly has to stop.  I know for a fact my sons' current teachers would completely accept a challenge to something they said, and be open to a lively discussion.  I just hope that continues.  I've found high school teachers can have much bigger egos than elementary school ones.

Back to the changes...we need to stop concentrating solely on engineering changes, as both Postman and John Taylor Gotto have said.  Smaller class sizes, better technology, Singapore vs Chicago math, longer school years and more money are not going to work without more massive reforms.  If I had a magic wand I'd get rid of testing and boring textbooks and instead help kids find and pursue their passions, or, as Postman writes, "instill our children with a sense of global citizenship, healthy intellectual skepticism, respect of America's traditions, and appreciation of its diversity."  I'd also change the goal of education from getting all kids into college or beating the Chinese to creating "good people, good citizens, and good lives" as Gotto writes. 

ROOM

We're three weeks into school, and while I love my kids' teachers, I do dabble in the occasional homeschool fantasy.  I don't think I'm really cut out of it, though, probably don't have the patience or organizational skills that it would take.  My husband has the skillz for sure, the passion for teaching and, frankly, the kids listen to him, but of course he's also got a job he loves, and focuses on educating outside of school.  I think my older son would love to stay home.  He's a little bored at school, his favorite time is "free time" and at the end of the day, he's a bit of a homebody. 

The kids just started at an after school program, where they play on the playground, do art projects, play games with some friends and have cool young teachers.  Given the choice, he'd rather go home and play math games on the didj and soccer with his brother while dad plans out soccer practices.  Before we started the program, he was being dropped off at my work for 30 minutes or so while I finished up and dad went to work.  I do not work at Google with Foosball tables and free snacks, we have white boards and hot chocolate.  Guess where he asks to go ALL the time?  He likes to draw complicated mazes and times tables, my adorable math geek.

My other son, while he doesn't always admit it, does like school, loves hanging out with his friends.  He may calmly tell me he's choosing not to go the YMCA that day, but I can not drag his cute little butt out at the end of the day.  After the 2nd trip to the principles in 3 weeks, though, boy is it tempting to blame the school, the outside world, so to speak.  He's a fairly calm and super sweet guy, but quick to defend himself and his friends, not to mention influenced into inappropriate actions by his friends.  So while it's tempting to want to keep them home with me, especially when it's their choice, I love getting out myself and know it's great for all of us. 

I just, as in a few hours ago, finished a book called Room by Emma Donoghue, a sometimes scary and emotional book about a mom and her son trapped in a small shed.  It's told from a five year olds perspective, which makes it an unusual read and not for everyone, but I really liked this book.  In it "Ma" found amazingly creative way to teach her clearly intelligent son while confined to a small space with a TV but no windows and very little in the way of extras.  I know I can find ways to teach them at home without becoming a homeschooler,  but I also know a rousing game of baseball in a nearby park can do just as much good as an art project at home.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of ROOM by Emma Donoghue for the From Left to Write Book Club, a virtual blogging book club. I was not obligated to write about the book and all opinions are my own.

Wonderful, Rebellious, Outstanding Teacher

I am loving my son's new teacher, and not just because she told me my son was a super genius, really.  She said he was a sweetheart, too, helping out the other kids when he finished his work.  Pretty much melted right onto the floor then and there.  We had a rough start to the year, but that's nothing new.  It was the first year my son didn't cry on his first week day of school.  He ended up with the teacher who, as acting principle, wanted to suspend his little brother after he got his nose bloodied last year and hit back. She turned out to be a super funny teacher, so that was good news.  One week later, though, he got a new teacher.  In order to reduce class sizes, they hired a new teacher and made some class changes, and although a group of buddies all moved, tears were shed and emotions ran high with the kids and parents.  My son does not adjust to changes well, and while he's a great student, he's not a fan of this whole school thing. 

The first week he had a different complaint each day about the teacher, but on Friday he had some anecdote told with a big smile.  I was concerned, though, and checked in with a few parents who'd been in the class.  In his view she was really quick to crack down on misbehaviour (mostly talking) and snapped loudly at the kids.  The parents saw this as her way to nip issues in the bud, but I wasn't so sure.  I suspected this complaining might just be his way of coping and adapting to a new teacher.  When I went in and volunteered myself I found one of calmest, nicest teachers I've ever met.  Actually, every teacher I've met at this school has been wonderful, although I've only gotten to know a handful.

She seems absolutely wonderful.  She asked me to call or meet with her because my little guy was sitting on the curb at recess, waiting for it to be over.  At our meeting she said the girls would come over to chat, but wanted to see if we could come up with ideas for lunchtime activities for him.  Ironically he's very athletic, unlike his mom who would never have attempted a game of tag in school, but the kids basically make up new rules during the game, especially the 5th graders as they hate to be bested by the speedy 3rd and 4th graders, so he doesn't really join those much.  Even though lunch and recess are break times for teachers (unless they have yard duty) she goes to watch her class to see how they are doing in these early weeks.  How great is that ? She's going to bring in a chess set and is working on getting the library open, although reading would not top his list.

She praised his artwork (he never does art at home) and confessed she had to sneak in some of the art projects and any free time (his favorite) in case the principle walked in. I love our principle, but she's pretty obsessed with test scores and extra time should be filled with academics.  I swear this woman is a saint.  She told me she never made her kids read at night and Keegan does plenty of reading during the day so not to worry about that (I was already about 70% given up on this nightly reading thing).  She's even going to tailor the homework to each kid, tossing the regularly issued homework.  (His last two teachers were not fans of homework and pretty much did all they could to avoid the worksheet busy work.)  She even conveyed a little excitement that he broke out of his normally good behaviour and ended up in the "red zone" for acting silly during music time.

These teachers who have big hearts, smart minds and are confident enough to break a few rules are what give me hope for our educational system.  Now if I could just get my little boy to admit he likes school just a little bit.

From Left To Write Book Club: Cowboy and Wills

 

 That's my little boy Donovan over there, and our new puppy.  We've had dogs the boys' whole lives, but it's such fun to see how they treat one they met before taking home, and especially one small enough to cuddle, although mostly the play is just a bit to rough for my or Tiro's comfort, leaving Keegan, older (but not bigger) brother to attempt to save the puppy.  I'm not a huge fan of dogs I have to admit, and they've caused our share of problems, but both our our "puppies" definitely exhibit that true loyalty, that excitement over seeing us whether we've been gone days or minutes.  Watching Donovan give Tiro a bath is going to be one of the highlights of my time with these guys.  As part of the Left to Write Book Club blog, we recently (although I'm way behind) read a truly wonderful book, "Cowboy and Wills" by Monica Holloway, a story of a boy with autism and the puppy who helped him.  His mom is the author and this heartfelt and honest book made me cry and made me think.  I immediately thought of the book when I saw this little scene, as in the book Wills ends up dressing Cowboy and his other animals and forming a little school at his house.

I've been reading and hearing quite a bit about autism lately and feel like I can learn so much, not to mention  laugh.  Some of my favorite bloggers are moms of kids with autism, and I got to spend some time with them at BlogHer.  Christine of A Mommy Story recently shared some wonderful posts about her daughter starting kindergarten.  I can always count on Jean to document the pet adventures over in Stimeyland, and I had the honor of sitting next to Kari during the autism panel, moderated by Shannon Des Roches Rosa where we heard from the sister and caregiver of an adult with autism, Pamea Merritt, Jean, and Carol, who has Aspergers and a son with autism, and was bright and funny and speaks all over the world about aspergers and autism.  The other night I had to stay up pretty late and got sucked into the Temple Grandin movie, which I heard about during the Emmys.  Make a plan to watch that movie right away, I swear I cried and at one point broke into spontaneous applause, sitting alone on my couch at 3 in the morning.

Sometimes I feel I have no real reason to learn about autism, beyond wanting my family to learn that everyone is different and we all deserve respect, not to mention opportunities to excel.  When I hear about little kids getting expelled from preschool or kindergarten it sickens me.  Learning more about how people with autism learn and process information makes me think we should be able to use that learning to vastly improve our educational system.  As Christine says, "No One Said Special Needs and Smart Can't Go Together" and the Temple Grandin book, "Thinking in Pictures" that the movie is based on clearly illustrates that people with autism can learn and achieve amazing things, their brains just work differently. 

I wrote a blog post a while ago about how our current educational system and testing is not really conducive to inspiring a love of learning, much less excelling, especially in kids who need to move a lot.  My dream is to group kids by their learning styles and by their interests, let them do what they want for as long as they want, whether it's reading or math, building structures or learning everything there is to know about living things, and supporting their learning styles.  In our school the youngest kids are required to do the project, feel the rocks or play in the dirt or race the snails, before reading about the science and physics behind their experiments.  As we get older we are first expected to listen to an explanation, read about the creatures or human body, then finally do a little observing or touching.  I've had a lot of science and engineering classes, and that method may work for some, definately not for me.

I could clearly go on about this forever, but it's late and I still have another book post.  I want to thank Monica Holloway for her wonderful book about Cowboy and Wills.  She hopes others can learn from the book, I will add it's simply a great read all on its own.
________________________________________________________________________

Disclosure: I received a free copy of Cowboy and Wills as part of the From Left to Write blog.

In The land of the blind, yada yada yada

I saw a post (tweet, facebook, I don't know) that dissed people with 300 followers and 269 friends calling themselves a "social media expert." What about 590 followers? How about if probably half of those are random companies I've never heard of? Guess if I was really a social media expert I'd at least have the link to that post right at my fingertips.

Tonight, though, someone wanted to hire me to build up their web, facebook, twitter and myspace (myspace, I'm afraid of that space) presence. So I sent an email with my thoughts, then spoke with the business owner for about 20 minutes on what I think he needed to do. We ended the conversation talking about my mom who had to go to the hospital yesterday. Yes, it was my brother's store, and my dad who wants to hire me, and no, I'm not going to take anything from my brother's fledgling store or my dad/free babysitter. They spent way to much money on a website and I see such potential.

You can see why so many want to call themselves social marketing experts. When someone has barely heard of twitter and you start talking about mommybloggers who will crash a website with a single mention and link to a new small business, you feel a teensie bit of prowess. So I'm going to see what I can do, and hope we can build him a bigger audience that this little blog o' mine. If anyone of the real experts out there want to pitch in, well, free toys are in the cards. First order of business, a header.

Boys will be...Restless

I just learned that my 11 year old nephew has been diagnosed with ADD after getting 4 As and an F on his latest report card. Seems he didn't turn in any of his homework, which counted for about 40% of the grade. My mom's response was disbelief, after all this was a kid who at 3 could sit for three hours just playing with buttons in a car, the same age he learned to read. "Sure" responded a friend, "they can focus on stuff they are interested in." Why does there have to be something wrong with a kid who doesn't work hard on things that don't capture his attention? This kid can play golf or chess for hours, video games too, although that's not quite the same. I'm sure it doesn't help that my parents and I are are currently engrossed in the book "Weapons of Mass Instruction" but that's for a later post. At the same time I was learning my bright nephew is failing due to lack of homework (he did fine on the tests), I have come face-to-face with the 2nd grade language arts standardized tests and it makes me sick.

On a recent Thursday I find myself sitting on a pint-sized chair with two 2nd graders. I'm helping them prepare for their first standardized test given in English. They are both native Spanish speakers who've been in a dual immersion program since kindergarten and I've volunteered to give them some extra help. The enthusiastic and eager little girl, N, sits so close to me you can't even fit one page of the test booklet between us. She loves to read, do word searches and is thrilled when she gets an answer right. The sweet-faced and active little boy, who I'll call S, has not stayed still for more than about 30 seconds since we started the session, and as I turn to answer N's inquiry, he darts across the room, ostensibly to sharpen his pencil, but his legs move a lot more quickly than his brain as he looks confused as to how and why he's standing there. I call him back and manage to hold his attention for about 3 minutes before "coach" (my husband) wanders in to get his iced coffee and our son. "S___________" he barks out, followed by the patented hand slap fist bash, and I can see the longing on S's face as my two guys head out to play pick-up soccer.

He was so full of energy he literally could not sit still in his chair, half falling out and popping up every once in while. He'd already been in school for four hours (this was a short day, other days it would have been 6) and he made it very clear reading was not his favorite subject. Why do we make kids sit down all day to learn? This boy had already been separated from his buddy, who had a tutor all to himself since he "was worse" I was told. S made it very clear reading was not his favorite subject. He even asked if we could do math instead.

I worry about both kids. The little girl absolutely loves to read, but the moronic questions she has to answer will likely burn that love right out. Would not her time be better spent pouring over books with princesses and witches and silly chickens, rather than answering "which of these is not used to make bubbles?" (the answer is glass balls, in case you were wondering, not scissors as any normal person would have surmised). I remember my mom telling me there was no need for SAT prep classes. I should simply read as much as possible, looking up any words I didn't know.

I guess I should feel lucky, in as much as my son can't sit still at home and complains about having to sit still all day at school, he is a rule follower. He would rather get on the rocket ship of good behavior in class even if it means sitting and being quiet when he's supposed to. He's actually in the most active 1st grade classroom at the school, one where the teacher routinely gets told he needs to get better control of the classroom. That class fits us well, although drives the parents who are former teachers a bit crazy. Even in this lively room full of 1st graders the need for conformity threatens to crush his active mind and adventurous spirit.

My husband encourages all his kinesthetic learners to juggle a ball while he's talking to them out on the field, as long as they aren't talking to each other. A roomful of moms were given "permission" by a professor of childhood education to let our little boys (and girls) play during reading time, that our toddlers and preschoolers would still get the benefits of reading. Can you imagine how that would be received in a public school? Actually, it's been done here, so maybe there is still hope.

In the meantime, I'm also following the rules to the best of my ability. The boys now have different tutors, ones who can get them to sit for the full hour. I'm working through the tests with two sweet girls and letting them read as much as they want, but no more.

Photo courtesy of creative commons