I’m no expert, just a mom whose son likes to read as much as she does.
My 15-year-old son just finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and its sequel Catching Fire (reviewed in these pages by Kim’s daughter Kelsey) and immediately said to me, “You have to read them, too.”
We have a long history of reading books together. Of course, it started when he was a baby and I read picture books to him, but long after I’d stopped reading out loud to him (and anyone who knows me knows I stopped doing that as soon as my kids could read to themselves), he and I would trade books or take turns with them.
I used to sneak into his room after he had fallen asleep to nab the new Harry Potter off of his night table so I could cram in a few chapters before my own bedtime. (Now he stays up later than I do, so that kind of sharing doesn’t work so well anymore and I have to wait my turn. Or he has to wait his.)
We both love fantasy, so I made him read some of my favorites. I gave him the best of the best, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card when he was too young to appreciate it, forgetting that reading comprehension is a different skill from moral nuance comprehension. But a few years later, he agreed to try it again–and loved it as much as I did. Victory.
More recently, I started passing on to him all the graphic novels I loved and he’s now as eager as I am to read the best of that genre. I’m thrilled to have someone to talk with ad nauseum about Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman and Alex Robinson and a ton of others.
Book sharing took on a more official tone when Kim and I started a parent/son book club with a couple of other families. Once a month we’d meet for dinner, wine (the kids got sparkling cider) and a discussion of a book that had been agreed upon at the previous meeting. Many of our choices were suggested by our elementary school librarian Yapha Mason who has a book blog of her own and an inexhaustible knowledge of what kids at every age like to read.
Some books were huge hits with both parents and kids, but others were less successful. One important lesson we learned was that kids mature fairly quickly and a bunch of 12 year olds will happily read a middle reader book but a bunch of 14-year-olds won’t. We had to “grow” our choices along with our kids. So here are my top suggestions for books to read with your teenaged son, ones that you’ll both enjoy.
This first group is good for 12 to 14 year olds.
1. ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card. You saw that coming, didn’t you? It’s exciting, riveting, action-packed–but the moral implications are explored for every choice the characters make and there are no easy answers.
2. Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby. A very moving book about whether or not a chimp can be a domesticated pet and how inhumane humans can be to animals and to each other. Read the rest of this entry »
Claire
Kim
