Summer Reading for Funsters

When I was a kid summer reading was a pretty big deal. So was endless summer adventuring and risk taking, but I'm hoping this little female funster ends that cycle abruptly. I knocked off most of the years reading between June and September, and despite managing all of those oh-so typically boy things quite deftly, I was very committed to reading my way back to school with some semblance of a brain in semi-game ready shape. I wasn't one of those kids that simply shut their head off on the last day of school, spent the summer nearly drowning, getting sunburnt, and acquiring scars. I wasn't all that much of a student back then, but I was a first dreamer, and with re-runs in full effect on the television, and no ability to bring such mesmerizing technology with me wherever I went, whether that be campground or river bank, I read. That kind of curiosity was a gift of unknown origins. My parents encouraged me to read but the voraciousness with which it happened was inexplicable.

So far Zo's a reader. If we're not reading to her, she's trying her hardest to make sense of all those letters that she sees on the pages. She regularly asks, "what's that word?" and "what's that mean? We catch her "trying" to read read constantly, all the time. She's even gotten into this breathtaking habit of cracking into the books that we get at the library almost the minute we pull away from the curb. She's often perused all of her books, sometimes two or three, or even four, before we get home. Since she can't read yet it's a little like looking through the toy store window, and by the time we get home she's bubbling over with excitement to actually read her new books. It's sweet. It's beyond sweet...it's hopeful. Kids that read, succeed. Write that down.