Hello! I hope you are doing okay. We are still in lockdown as would be many of you. I have been falling back on lots of my lockdown strategies that worked for me last year to make this time as easy as possible for the family. One of which is making sure to explore and chat about anything a family member has done that is different that day. Our days are all pretty similar at the moment, so looking for freshness and something different to talk about is important.
Last night for example at dinner the 15 year old (reluctantly at first) shared with us what he learnt from a Google Meet he had with visiting students from another school - it was a Jewish school and they were sharing about their religion. We all asked questions and had a great chat about what he had learnt. This combined with the older kids’ knowledge made for a refreshing change of dinner time conversation.
We are also super lucky that we live within 5km of our local library and they are doing a click and collect service so I have made two trips to the library this week to stock up on books for the kids. If you are not as lucky try and see your library is on a service like Borrow Box where you can borrow both e-books and audiobooks for free.
Throughout all of our lockdowns, a key focus for me has been to keep the younger kids reading. Even in non-lockdown times, it can be a challenge to keep secondary school kids reading. From my experience of seeing kids through their secondary school education, having a regular and wide reading habit is one of the best things they can do to help improve themselves. Even if the kids haven’t been keen to borrow books from the local library I have always borrowed books I think they would like and then have them in an easily accessible place (we actually have a library book box on our bookshelf!).
Having books available that are age-appropriate and of varying genres is key to keeping them reading widely. In recent email chats about her latest book The Wolf’s Howl (Maven & Reeve #2) I asked author Allison Tait if she would be happy to write a new book list that shared books by different genres – with the aim of helping our boys read a bit more widely. Both of the younger boys are reading well at the moment but they are both really stuck in particular genres. Al said yes and I am super excited to share this comprehensive list of books suitable for 12 – 15 years olds listed by genre! I now have a whole new bunch of books to reserve at the library - thanks Al
Read widely: The number one tip for readers and writers aged 12-15 (and a list to get them started).
It is such a great list of over 30 books across the following genres:⠀
Sports⠀
‘Feels Real’ fiction⠀
Mystery/thriller⠀
Sci fi⠀
Classics⠀
And if you are after more booklists you can try these ones out too:
Have a great rest of the week and if you have some book recommendations please let us know by leaving a comment - I would love to see them!
Nic
*Please note that if the title of the booklist has boys or girls in it this of course doesn’t mean that this list is exclusively for either gender, but feedback from children and parents has shown these books to be more popular with one gender than the other.
hi Nic thanks so much for all the emails. In NZ we went into lockdown last Tuesday after such a grateful long time without lockdown. Everything is shut here: a super "hard" lockdown. So definitely no click and collect! We did an emergency Library visit in the hour before lock down. However my 10 year old son is a huge reader and he's used all his books. Any suggestions from you or readers about good e-reader options? I don't really love the idea of e-readers but it's probably a good option now as we're looking at a lengthy lockdown. Thank you so much for all the content, Diana
I agree it can be hard to keep the older kids reading and I have taken out many books from the library trying to find some that will interest my 11 year old. One she seems quite hooked on is Catch me if I fall (Barry Jonsberg) and the other two library-books0in-waiting are This one is ours (Katie O'Donnell) and When rain turns to snow (Jane Godwin). I am not sure what genres but thought I wold share as they all came highly recommended for this age group.