Listen to Your Mama

I know my children very well. That's not to say I don't know some things about them, we do not inhabit the same mind, after all. Thankfully. But, I've spent a huge amount of their lives with them, and I *do* know their reading preferences.

Dominic only likes comedy. He prefers it mixed with action, like in the Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband series by John Flanagan (we really like the audiobooks for these, by the way, available on audible), but comedy is where it's at for him. He's also a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey, adventure with some comedy thrown in.

Xavier likes dystopian societies. He likes them for the first couple books, then ends up throwing the last one across the room, a boy after my own heart. (Have you ever noticed that many dystopian series come in trilogies?) He and Gabriel both have a love/hate relationship with emotional books.

Gabriel likes adventure books, things by Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler are favorite authors, with Sherlock Holmes being high on his list of series as well.

But, even though I've been teaching my children for 8 years, they still don't trust me. Maybe it's because I occasionally make them read things I know they'll dislike but that I think are important. Most recently, this was Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cr. I knew Xavier would hate it; he's just so incredibly empathetic that it would hurt him. It did. After he read it, however, I had him write about why he did or didn't like it, and why it's an important book to read even when you don't like it. He was on board with this and gave excellent reasons for both parts of the essay.

Still, I knew when I assigned "To Kill a Mockingbird" that he'd love it. Gabriel loved it. It is still one of my favorite all time books, and it fits Xavier's reading personality perfectly. Plus, I think it's an important book to read.

He balked. He drew the reading of that book out for three weeks, reading a few pages here and there, until I told him I wanted him to finish it this week. He still had more than half the book left to read when I left for work yesterday at 1:00. This was the text I received 2 hours later.

Yep. I know my kids.

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