By The Book

I’ve been volunteering at a local school through a program called Read Houston Read. If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity, I’d recommend it.

You spend a half-hour each week reading with each child.

I think the kids, first-graders who are as cute as buttons, like it.

Read Houston Read books are about things like a boy in Africa who saves up his money to buy a bicycle so he can help his mother or a Chinese-American boy who gives his New Year’s money to a homeless guy with no shoes. There was one about the life cycle of a butterfly.

That’s fine, they’re well-written and their illustrations are well-done, but … meh.

This week, there was a book fair going on in the library, blocking access to the Read Houston Read books. The librarian suggested bringing books from home. So, I did: some of my own kids’ favorites.

One of my students picked My Life with The Wave. The other picked Elbert’s Bad Word. I also brought Sweet Dream Pie, Seven Silly Eaters and Harvey Potter’s Balloon Farm and, in case they wanted something to read to me, Dragon’s Fat Cat by Dav Pilkey, author of the Captain Underpants books.

When my own kids were small, we used to go to the library and check out piles of children’s books, whatever caught any of our fancies. Many turned out to be “meh,” but some fascinated my kids, we read them over and over. Those ones we bought to keep.

These books tended to trust the children more. Their story lines were more complex, contained magical elements and were told with wry humor. They didn’t hit you over the head with “life lessons,” but my kids, now 22 and 19, and even my husband still remember them. They were better.