find good stuff for my kids to read

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I should probably have renamed this goal ‘Find good stuff for my kids that I actually like to read too’. My son just cracks up at the food jokes. Can’t think why.

the other day, my kids asked me what I did to get to sleep, because they are scared of robbers under the beds (like we have anything worth robbing) so I suggested reading some really difficult boring book, as in my experience of late, picking up a book about company taxation regimes does the job quite nicely. So I found unappealing old bibliothèque rose hardcover editions of Enid Blyton and said, here you go, these’ll bore the socks off you.

I honestly thought they’d be too difficult and too old-fashioned. Well, daughter didn’t go to sleep…she has hardly put it down. Even read it in the playground despite having the piss taken.

The secret seven, who would have thought. Of all the Enid Blytons, they were at the bottom of my list. But reading! Awww it’s lovely to see. Why do I so want them to read? Won’t they grow up sitting there reading instead of painting the walls and making curtains and ironing and washing up? Not like that reminds me of anyone.

Son didn’t like it though. I think I’m going to have to get hold of some Biggles or something. What do little boys read?

in the Marne and in Nomandie and the Somme seem to have been painted in bright colours since we last did the journey. Is it to wake up sleepy drivers bored stiff with the monotony of the “field, church watertower, village” trio…(edit that’s not a trio but I don’t know what the quattro type word is) or is it cos they got a cheap job-lot of paint. European norms? Or did they need to distinguish autoroutes by colour? Maybe it’s Google earth related? (Manager of French autoroutes could have hazy grasp of geography, you never know).

My thought was if you wanted to wake people up on the motorway you could put quotes of great French people. They name roads after them; why not? Give you something other to think about than why they chose that yellow. Kids might learn to spell too.

I’ve looked this up everywhere and can’t find the answer. Asked him to describe it to me and he says (verbatim)

La situation : en fait que er je n’arrive pas a trouver, attend, à trouver, le mot mais que signifie le DonnTxt sur le DisqDonn.

I doubt 43ers can answer that but you never know.

of course! i’m sure she was mean and spiteful and all but at least she did.

The washing up and stuff.

Okay I’m going to have to go back on this.

I’m thinking of my daughter. Since she learned to read she seems to have had her head in a book. It’s quite fantastic to watch, as she was a tv addict, and a hyperactive child. Someone told me she would calm down when she learnt to read and they were not wrong.

So. Now she’s reading, what should she read? What female role models for a seven-year-old are out there in seven-year-old literature? She loves Max and Lili, which are sort of philosophically moralistic cartoons dealing with difficult subjects. But what next?

And where is Cornelie?