If you're like me, you couldn't wait to open up
Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows,
and the other books you adored as a kid and share them with your child.
If you did, and you and your child joyously bonded as
you read, mazel tov. You can stop reading now.
That did not happen for me. While we started
happily enough with Boynton, there quickly came
a day when he rejected But Not the Hippopotamus,
and soon wouldn't let me read to him at all.
We worked through it.
He enjoyed almost all of Dr. Seuss and Madeline,
though he started to prefer to read to himself.
Next came The Nursery Alice which I doggedly
read aloud, despite the calm apathy he radiated.
And that was about it. Subsequent attempts
with The Jungle Book and Just So Stories
were unwelcome and I cut them short.
I started looking somewhat desperately
for what he would like, while he contentedly
read and reread Dr. Seuss.
(digression Your Favorite Seuss is in his
high school library-do other kids his age
still read Seuss?).
What to do?
I don't have a solution, just some thoughts.
But this post is long enough.
Why don't you comment, email me
- autismreads@gmail.com- or post
on the autismreads facebook page.
And I'll be back next week with what
wisdom I can muster.
I have had similar experiences with my children. They have very different tastes in books - I have one who loves Moby Dick - I HATE Moby Dick. My solution was to go to the second hand story and get a bunch of random books in the series 'Great American Classics" They are white books with red titles and are children's versions of the classics. Then I let them pick what to read - I don't always enjoy what they pick, but since they are the children's versions at least they are a fast read.
ReplyDeleteThen if they like something I can usually persuade them to let me read them the 'adult' version. I hope this suggestion helps.