Emery's Reading List

Emery’s literacy history

Before I try to justify why I’m about to read a Shakespearian play with my son, I should give you his literary history, which has been constructed by him, us, and his librarians (who are amazingly perceptive at suggesting books he would like).

Just some of the books we’ve read together at night, in no particular order

A few Magic Tree House books

Treasure Island

The Hobbit

Wind in the Willows

The Apothecary by Malie Meloy

Harry Potter 1-3 (then he took them over and read/ listened on CD for the rest of them)

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (great if your kid loves video games)

Chomp

Ghost Knight

The Divide (Victor was mad because this was the second book in a series—but Emery picked it out with my mom)

Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes

Wimpy Kid (just one or two before he started reading them on his own)

Ralph and the Motorcycle

The High Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate

Frindle

Danny the Champion of the World

The Twits

Stickdog wants a hamburger (and its sequel in which he wants a hot dog)

Of course, we read picture books for years—Frog and Toad, A Snowy Day, everything by Mo Willems, Chris Van Allsburg, and on and on.

On his own, he’s read every possible Garfield he could get his hands on. He’s read all of the Wimpy Kids and Captain Underpants (as well as the spinoffs). He loves graphic novels, and has read the Bone series, the two Stickman Odyssey books, manga-inspired by video games—Pokemon and Zelda (even the right to left versions). I frequently hand him books that are sent to the ALAN Review for review and he reads them to give me his opinion.

One thing he loves to do is listen to audio books—he has read and reread everything by Rick Riordan. He has also listened to Roald Dahl’s books.