Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2013/What I've Read In 2013

7. The Mysterious Benedtict Society - By Trenton Lee Stewart

The world has become a very dark place and the only people who can stop a crazy man from taking over the world are 4 orphaned and highly intelligent kids.

My daughter *loved* this book. I found it a bit predictable in places, but the plot and characters are very intriguing. NOTE: It's very long. (2" thick)


8. Superfudge - By Judy Blume

The next book in the Fudge / 'Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing' series. Fudge and Peter's family gets a new baby and they move to Princeton, NJ for a year.

My son *loved* this book. Judy Blume did a re-write of this recently to update it to modern day (the items the kids wanted for Christmas, that sort of thing), which surprised me. If you read enough of the classics to kids, they are pretty adaptable if you explain that the book was written back in an earlier era (1970s, originally, because the Hatchers go and watch Superman in the cinema, hence the title). It also lets you talk to them about toys you (or your parents) wanted when you were kids. WARNING: this book may cause your children to question how babies are made (phew, luckily my kids haven't asked that one yet), and if Santa really exists. (I used selective editing to make it through that passage).


9. Mind in the Making - By Ellen Galinsky

I wasn't sure if I should include this on my list or not because, technically, I never finished it. It was my reading assignment for parenting class. Most of the advice works better for parents of newborns through toddler age, and I didn't find it very applicable to my family. Moreover is was very dry. Basically, she takes 1000s of psychological studies done on babies from birth onwards and goes through them... ALL, listing when, where, and who did the study and summarized what they "discovered" from said study. (Come on, people, do you really need a study to see that kids will get bored if you chop up a Sesame Street skit and show it to them out of order so that it doesn't make sense? Or that if you leave the TV on in the back ground, they won't be able to concentrate as well than if you turn it off, even if it's a "boring game show"? Note to psychologists: kids LOVE game shows and NEVER find them boring.) It reads more like a college thesis than a self-help book. Several of the studies, I found, like the ones referenced above, went in assuming that kids are stupid automatons, and lo and behold the studies found that kids have brains. :rolleyes: I'd say that the best parenting books are intriguing and funny, this book failed in both those respects. You need to keep your audience awake and entertained or you'll loose us, because we'd much rather be reading a novel (or LnC fanFiction) and our free reading time is very limited. If you're a new parent (or soon to be parent) this would be a better match for you than it was for me and my classmates, who mostly have 5+ aged kids, as I do recall thinking at times, "Well, I wished I had known that when my kids were infants." Alas, I can't recall off the top of my head what any of that stuff was, though.