Harry Potter (again) and more

Harry Potter, by JK Rowling

I thought I’d take the chance during the recent lockdown in Melbourne to try reading Harry Potter aloud to my kids. Child #1 has read the whole series, and child #2 started to listen to it in audio form. I managed to get the illustrated edition of The Philosopher’s Stone from the library and it’s really going well, especially for the 6 and almost-9-year olds; we are now on The Chamber of Secrets. We read a few pages in the morning before school, while they eat their breakfast, and then try to squeeze in as much as we can between dinner and bedtime. The girls each grab a colouring book, perhaps perch themselves over a heating duct or under a blanket and we settle in for the world of Hogwarts, it’s really fun.

Hereville, by Barry Deutsch

Last year I raved on about Jerry Craft’s wonderful graphic novel, New Kid. There is now a sequel called Class Act, which Jude got for his birthday. It is equally as brilliant and I must write a review for it. In Class Act, each chapter header is an homage to a well-known book. One of the books referenced was Hereville, which we hadn’t heard of before. That is how we came to find this graphic novel series about an 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. The illustrations really remind me of Ben Hatke’s great series Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl, and Jude has absolutely flown through them.

School of Monsters, by Sally Rippin, art by Chris Kennett

I am aware that very soon I am heading into the teaching-a-child-to-read-phase for the fourth and last time. (It’s a much longer process than the teaching-a child-to-ride-a-bike-phase, but much shorter than the teaching-a-child-to-put-a-dish-in-the-dishwasher-phase.) I recognise that I am getting a bit of take-home reader fatigue. Bless Joy Cowley’s heart, I hope she has been well compensated for the decades of reading her books have endured. But sometimes the books that come home are either too difficult, too easy or in some other way just not right for your child. I have started to get a handful of readers from the library for my kids so that when their reader isn’t right, we have another option.

This newly released 8 book series by the wonderful Sally Rippin will be a great help to all those parents who struggle with the readers that come home from school. First of all, it’s just wonderful to have a new option, but mainly this series has been so well-conceived and executed that it will actually help kids and parents stay engaged in the process. The text is rhyming which really helps with sounding out new words. There are also sight words all through the text without it feeling too forced. The books actually read like short simple stories, not a jumble of short words and repetitive phrases that don’t really have much meaning. Then at the end of the story there is a little game to play to match rhyming words encountered in the text.

While these books are too easy for my Grade 1 and Grade 3 girls, they still wanted to try them (they are by Sally Rippin after all). My 4 year old wanted to give them ago and managed to enjoy trying to recognise the letter patterns to try sound out words. I think we’ll get good use out of these next year when he’s in school.

The Whale Who Wanted More, by Rachel Bright and Jim Field

This is the fifth in the spectacularly wonderful series by Rachel Bright and Jim Field that I’ve been following for a few years now. In their other books we have met characters who are proud, scared, selfish, and timid. In this story we meet Humphrey the whale who collects and hoards flotsam and jetsam in an attempt to feel satisfied and whole. The final lines of the poetic story is such a great reminder for all of us in today’s world of accumulation and excess: “since we all need so little to have quite enough”. This is a must read.