When I was 6 I wrote my first chapter book series. It was entitled Robin Hood Conquers the Monsters. I still have it. In fact I just pulled it out of an old envelope my mother saved for me. The memory of gathering paper and crayons around me and giving word, shape and form to my vision is still there for me. But even more, I have this image of Robin Hood in my head. This image, this picture that I got from a chapter book with pictures that I read…well I saw Robin Hood clearly. I was inspired by the pictures of him fighting with Little John on the log, crossing the creek. I was inspired by his band of merry men in the wood dining on stag flesh. Every last picture burned bright in my imagination.
After Robin Hood Conquers the Monsters, was to come a sequel: Robing Hood Conquers the Martians. Beyond that there were no doubt many other daunting creatures and enemies that I envisioned Robin Hood conquering.
But the images that inspired me are leading me on this path of discovery about the creative abilities of kids, and how pictures excite their imaginations.
I created the DaVinchy Series while Fran Panza and I were working on our first book, Doctor Walter and His Plan to Populate the Moon. We needed a little mouse who lived with Dr. Walter to bear witnesss to Dr. Walter’s creative genius. Fran gave me drawing after drawing – and in each one there was a little something amiss….eyes too big, nose too big, not enough mouth for expression, and so forth.
But when I saw DaVinchy – really saw him for the first time, a 50 book chapter book series – chapter books for kids – exploded into my head almost as whole cloth.
There is power in pictures to excite the imagination in untold ways. I designed and built my own house – and it was the image of it that came first that I held in my mind while I then had to proceed to detail graphically as a blueprint and as a physical rendering to begin the building.
So we offer our little chapter book series to the world with the express intent of inspiring kids to create, to tap into their imaginations, to inspire their love of reading. And we give the first free book away to you – as our love offering, and to prime the pump of visual imagination that is waiting inside your child!
Perhaps from these adventures your child’s own fertile mind with tap into inspirations that will fuel a generation’s desire for great stories, great inventions, or great intentions soon to be fulfilled.
I was rooting in the attic the other day and pulled out a Chip Hilton book I’d put away for safe keeping. Actually, somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought my kids would want to read this chapter book series that gave me so much pleasure. When they were “of age” I pulled a book or two out, and my kids laughed at the characters and the stories – in the way that kids like to laugh at things gone by that don’t express their current reality.
So it’s pretty clear to me that kids chapter books are typically “of their time” and that they fade away when their time passes.
This isn’t a profound observation – just one that I mention in passing, because even a series like the Goosebump chapter book series which my daughter read less than 15 years ago – which seems kind of timeless to me, seems to have passed it’s prime. I see it languishing on the shelves at book sales and yard sales now. Kids are “hungry” for the next big thing and the next big thing. I remember that feeling when I was a kid.
It’s funny, in that regard, our children’s voracious appetites for the new and the unique experience makes them the true engines of the American economy.
This is a lesson well worth learning as a parent. If you want to entice your child to read, you should be looking for the next thing that they are interested – the cool, unique, new and different thing that will let them keep pace with their peers. It will do you no good to protest that this series or that chapter book series would be of great interest to them if only they would give it a try. For kids, at times the patina of age is the kiss of death.
The DaVinchy Chapter Book Series is an ebook chapter book series. This is new and different. Kids love their computers and their colorful fun experience with them – especially with computer games. We give away a free ebook, a chapter ebook. It is Book 1 in the series, entitled Cat’s Claw. It’s a full and complete book – in every sense of the word. Click on Free Book above and give your kids a fun reading experience that is cutting edge.
I spent the weekend on the Clarion river, tubing, carried by the current…thinking about kids and reading…and thinking lots about small things. In Bill Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods (which makes a great read aloud chapter book for kids 8 and up)…he says that when you’ve been walking long distances in the woods, the smallest things can produce a low-level of ecstasy.
I like the sound of that - low level ecstasy – and how it pertains to the quiet joys of reading chapter books. I certainly felt low level ecstasy reading Gertrude Chandler Warner to my children, and in turn listening to them read her sentences aloud to me. And there were many time in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Narnia Series, when I felt the same.
Mostly these were smaller moments in the books. Not the big crescendo’s or the epic battles or the rescue scenes. No, it was in the well drawn character, or the simple gesture perfectly drawn that I could feel myself begin, inside, to vibrate at the low levels of ecstasy.
Tubing, floating down the river, you come slowly upon the bank, witnessing one small miracle after another. The river plays a game of hide and seek with you, if you let it. The currents turn your tube, first one way, then another. But around ever turn, and sometimes just on the other side of the next rock – or maybe it is the next rock itself where you witness a piece of nature’s beauty. It could even be the way a shaft of light, newly revealed by a passing cloud illuminates a bank full of grasses shifting in the breeze. Or the startling red of a cardinal flower so vibrant in the summer sun that it makes you want to cry. Or the soaring spiral of a bald eagle casting it’s shadow on the glassy surface of the river.
Each moment is so small and so large at the same time. Each moment is joy beyond boundless joy – expressing to you the pure happiness of being alive.
This is the same joy of turning the page with your child as you read together before bed. “I’ll read a page and you’ll read a page.” And you look down and see your child’s small hand grip the edges of the book, and hear her sure voice float smoothly across the bobbing waters of vowels and consonant that have never before passed her lips in the same way.
Low levels of ecstasy pass in front of us in every momen when there are children in our lives.
Enjoy these chapter book reading days. They are precious beyond all that is precious on this earth. Just let the river carry you.
I once worked with a guy who was a very accomplished professional and the vice president of a mid-sized company who had deep difficulties reading. In fact, when he was stressed out or under any pressure, he literally read one word at a time. And by one word at a time, I mean one…..word……at……a……time. He would consider each word, it’s possible meanings, think about this word separately – try and fit it into the context of what he had just read – and get frustrated that this word was too variable in nature (they were almost all too variable in nature) to carry the exact precise meaning that it needed to in context.
I worked with him for over 8 years before I heard the story of his reading issues. It turned out that he was quick to learn how to “decode” letters and the sounds of letters and to read when he was in first grade. But as soon as he graduated to chapter books his troubles began.
So long as he was reading a word at a time he had no problem. If there were pictures with the words to give him clues to the story he was reasonably good at reading. But if you took away the pictures and asked him to read for meaning – he read one-word-at-a-time.
You can imagine what a titanic struggle this was. And he said that up until the 11th grade, he got through schooling by faking it or by having his parents read to him. This is not an uncommon story in that regard. But when he got to the 11th grade, his father, who was a musician, listened to him reading one night and realized that his son was literally reading ever word separately – and could not get the sense of the whole.
My friend was a drummer, his father was a piano player, so they shared the vocabulary of music. So when his father told him, “Paul, you are reading every word like it’s a single note of music. You have to read them a phrase at a time – like a musical phrase where you don’t stop but just play it all in a burst”…well at that point Paul finally had a way to read that opened up the world of books to him.
Why do I bring this up? Well in my last post I asked you to list what you thought the top 10 reading problems were. And at the same time I shared the individual challenges we faced with each of our kids.
Now, by sharing Paul’s unique story – I want to gently lead you to a conclusion.
When you are watching your child read, the top 10 problems are irrelevent in some regard. Because if you are watching for the problems, you may easily miss the solution to the specific and unique challenges that your little chapter book kids may be facing.
Even if they have a “common” problem like dyslexia, or a challenge remembering words that contains spellings or letter combinations that are exceptions to rules – you will miss the solution if you are focusing on their problem.
The DaVinchy Chapter Books for Kids are filled with fun, exciting pictures that make it easy for kids to read. It doesn’t matter if they are dyslexic, or ADHD or ADD or what have you – the reading experience will be more pleasureable and easy and fun.
And if there is a secret solution out there, it is this: make reading fun for your little chapter book reading kids!
Try our free chapter book to get your child started on a lifetime love of reading today!
I’m going to put this question out there for you to answer. Given all the chapter books for kids – and all the reading issues that exist for the kids reading these chapter books…what are the top 10 problems chapter book readers face?
On Monday, I’ll give you my top ten list. But I want to frame this up by talking about what we experienced with homeschooling our kids. With our oldest child, our daughter, you wouldn’t say that there were any problems. Except she’d could read so well that she sometimes books that exceeded her emotional grasp – or that frightened her or overstimulated her imagination. This is a tough call for parents – because kids are always pushing boundaries outward, no matter where you set them. At the time, she was reading Goosebumps books – which are harmless enough in their own way, or for the right kid at the right time. But if situations converge – sleepless nights can abound!
Our middle child – our oldest son – was not what you would call a fast-paced reader. He’s got a mild form of dyslexia and he processes slowly. Slowly but surely I might add. I’m not sure he ever really read any chapter books. But at some point or another he started reading the instruction manual for Sim City, the computer game. This manual was as thick as a non-abridged dictionary. It was at that point in time that I knew to leave well enough alone and not worry about chapter books for him at all.
Our youngest son loved the Redwall Series and the Lord of the Rings, and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Series. In fact he loved anything we would read aloud to him – or that he could get as a book on tape. Still does in fact. I just finished rereading Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and the first thing he asked me was whether there was a book on tape in the library for it. When he did start to read, he would read the same book over and over again. In fact, when we read A Boy’s Life by Robert Mccammon I thought I might have to pry the book out of his fingers he reread it so many times. But he loved The Boxcar Kids, and Arnold Lobel’s chapter books – and The Wind and the Willows – and just about anything that we’d read to him. Harry Potter books were eventually his cup of tea, too. A bit later in the game than you would say was right if you had a schedule in your head for that sort of thing…but he devoured them just the same, even though we’d read them out loud.
I wonder if you see where I’m going here? Can you tell me the problems that your chapter book readers face? Your top 10?
There are real benefits to having pictures in a chapter book when it comes to helping a child become more visually literate. One aspect of visual literacy is actually the ability to visualize. This is kind of lifted from a wonderful book called Strategies that Work byt Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis – so nods and thanks to them.
In the book they suggest visualizing from a vivid piece of text – and then discussing what you see in your mind’s eye. Well, I’ve been in meetings with Ivy League grads who couldn’t visualize their shoe if they were looking at it in the mirror – and no I’m not exaggerating. This was a remarkable experience for me, because over the course of my life I very consciously cultivated the skill of visualizing things in my mind’s eye.
And the way the DaVinchy Chapter Book Series for kids plays into this is that it jumpstarts the imagination. I mean, kids will already know what DaVinch and Milo look like. The process will be more like imagining what they look like in any given scene or scenario from the book.
There is real value in this process, not just from the point of visual literacy – imaging for the sake of becoming proficient at imaging. But if you buy the dual coding view of reading, that visualizing the words in your head helps you process the decoding of letters and words and turn them into meaning – than any visualizing practice you give a kid is good.
Plus, if you then give your kids a box of crayons and a sheet of paper and let them sketch it out – you stretch their muscles even farther.
Maybe you think it’s funny to talk about visualizing muscles. But that is exactly what they are like. If you use visualizing just a little bit, than when you are asked to visualize what you “see” in your mind’s eye will be vague. But when you practice it for a while, you can create visualizations that are 3 dimensional to the point that you can walk around them and study them. Interestingly, if you read about Nikolai Tesla, the greatest inventor of the 20th century, you will learn that he not only visualized the AC motor before making one – he also let it “run” in his head for a couple months and watched what parts wore out.
The connection between visualizing and genius or at the least creativity is a fairly well established one. So all good things will accrue from this simple exercise.
If you are trying to find chapter books for kids with a search engine, you may need help narrowing down your search. There are many different “keywords” or “search terms” that you can type into Google, Yahoo, Bing, or Ask to find what you are looking for. The first sort might – and I emphasize might – be your child’s grade level in school. Many people start here and type in:
- First Grade Chapter Books
- Second Grade Chapter Books
- Third Grade Chapter Books
- Fourth Grade Chapter Books
If you try this term: Children Chapter Books – you will likely get results that skew younger than first grade. You’ll note that most people don’t type in Fifth Grade Chapter Books because at that point kids are usually reading in the Young Adult Novels search category.
Another way people think about chapter book series for kids is by gender, interest, or with a specific end goal in mind – like so:
- chapter books for boys
- chapter books for girls
- christian chapter books for kids
- funny chapter books kids
- action adventure chapter books
Another way that folks think about chapter books, which is probably more typical of how a reading teacher would think of it, is by reading level – like so:
- first chapter books kids
- easy chapter books kids
- level one chapter books
- level two chapter books
- level three chapter books
The whole concept of reading levels is a subject unto itself. There’s a well-known teachers guide to the topic called Matching Books to Reader byFountas and Pinnell that explains the underpinning and provides levelled reading lists if you are interested.
The last way that people search expresses their great hope and faith in the search gods to bring them exactly what might please them with their search:
- Best Chapter Books for Kids
- Free Chapter Books for Kids
- Good Chapter Books for Kids
You can see the train of thought there. Ok – if I can’t have the best, I’ll settle for free chapter books. But if I can’t have free, than a good chapter book will do.
Speaking of free chapter books. We are so sure that your child will like the DaVinchy Series Chapter Books (ebooks) – that we give away book 1. Click on FREE BOOK
above to get yours immediately.
Finally, if your child is a struggling reader or a reluctant reader, it is perfectly ok to search on
- chapter books for struggling readers, or
- chapter books for reluctant readers, or
- chapter books for dyslexia.
Or just stop right here a moment and give the DaVinchy Chapter Book Series a try with our free book. Struggling readers and reluctant readers seem to love this action adventure chapter book series that they can read on their computer. It’s different and fun – not like a regular book that they may have bad associations with.
Let me begin by saying that I am new to the way the academic community is using the term visual literacy. In my own mind, by creating a chapter book series that was filled with pictures, I’ve been waging a one-man crusade for visual literacy. But in the time since I’ve been on the march, which is over 15 years now, the world has kind of started catching up around me. So you’ll forgive me if I bandy the term about in non-academic ways.
Wow – what a long preamble to say that I think that kids should be reading chapter books filled with pictures. First, this is important because it will help promote regular old literacy, especially for kids who struggle to decode words (understand what they read) without the aid of pictures – and this is a huge part of the population of kids, I can tell you. But second, there should be pictures in every thing that kids read because they live in a society that is filled with images. Every other input of information they will process in their lives practically is filled with or dominated by moving or still images. And developing a skill and facility for seeing, critically analyzing, comprehending possible meanings of, and deriving appropriate meaning of the pictures in the context of the surrounding words is a tremendously important life skill.
Why would the academic community abandon the teaching of this skill. I’ve ranted (er…discussed. 
) this before as a problem related to the cost of color printing. But at this point, I would like to point out that academia favors the kids and ultimately the adults who can read without the aid of people. In fact, if you’ve ever read an academic paper, you’d swear that they get paid to fill up the paper so you can’t sneak a picture onto it. If you want an example of an academic sentence, read my last sentence in the previous paragraph. I’m not proud of it. Too long. But it’s late and I’m not going back to edit it. So I’ll use it to make my point.
So man, I’m on the march again for visual literacy. Sometimes I get a bit beaten down. People will tell me that kids don’t want pictures. They want chapter books with words only. And in my heart, I know this is only so because these kids haven’t been exposed to the right kind of books.
For this reason – I am in love with the graphic novel. These came out in the public eye, crawled out from beneath the underground counter culture rock where they’d been languishing for years in the mid 90s and filled me with hope.
So hey – maybe I’m writing graphic novels for the chapter book for kids set. What do I know – other than the fact that kids need books with pictures.
The fondest memories I have are spending time reading chapter books, and then long novels aloud to my kids. These were times of intense shared experience, close emotional bonding as we snuggled up on the couch or the bed together, and certainly lots of laughter and conversation.
Most parents I know stop reading aloud to their kids when kids start reading for themselves. But in addition to the remarkable fun and closeness that reading aloud can foster there are very valid educational reasons for reading aloud, too.
The first reason is that when you read aloud, if you allow yourself, you can read with such expression that you can bring a story more alive than it would ever be otherwise. Playing with character voices, emphasizing important words in every sentence – you can infuse new meaning into books that kids think they have already read and understood. My kids still tease me about my Gollum voice from the Lord of the Rings, which was remarkably like the Dobby, the house elf in Harry Potter. But the truth is, at the time, I was bringing these little critters to life in a way that they’d never quite gotten reading to themselves. This hlds true for the early chapter books or the chapter books for second graders that you think they have full understanding of. Authors frequently lace in lots of fun stuff that you can bring out by reading aloud.
The second reason (beyond the emotional closeness which is the great big reason) to read aloud is that you can read works that are beyond your kids reading ability and stretch their minds. I think this point is so important, especially for kids who may be struggling readers, or reluctant readers. These kids especially benefit from being exposed to the world of books at the same pace as kids who are taking off and reading well above grade level. Their minds are just as ready to deal with the subject matter. In fact their minds are hungry - starving – for the goodness that’s in the chapter books and novels that their eyes or their brains may have physical challenges processing.
We homeschooled our kids. And I would say that 90% of what they permanently retained was information that was read aloud to them. My kids are all in their 20s and still to this day we can have long discussions about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or The Boxcar Kids chapter book series, or Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, or To Kill a Mockingbird. Or you name it.
Reading chapter books and novels and even non-fiction aloud opens up your childs mind. If forges a bond of closeness. And it expands their emotional horizons in ways too important ever to miss. These are priceless moments that are waiting for you to open them up and enjoy them.
When it comes to kids chapter books, the New York Times book list is a bit out of touch. The realities of the literary marketplace are such that the New York Times is lumping full-fledged novels for kids into the category of chapter books. For a mom or dad looking for a good chapter book to get their kid reading, this can all be a bit maddening.
For example the New York Times best selling chapter book list released July 17 contains books from the
- Wolves of Mercy Falls Series
- Kane Chronicles Series
- Hunger Games Series
- Dork Diaries
These, and the other books on the list are pegged for readers 8-12 years old. Where I think most people would agree that the chapter book series they know targets kids 5 to eight years old – maybe 9 years old on the high side.
Honestly, I can appreciate the challenge that the New York Times has. Because once you start to slice the pie up, kids chapter books have many relevant subsections. I’m just saying that the kinds of kids novels they have on the chapter books best seller list clearly deserve a list of their own, and leave the designation of chapter books to the category of books that people commonly recognize as chapter book series for kids (not early adolescents).
But thank you New York Times for looking at kids literature at all! One day I hope to see the DaVinchy Chapter Book Series on this list, and age-appropriately so!