I used to envision my family sitting together, each reading their own book...maybe an afghan thrown on a lap, maybe sipping a cup of hot tea. You see, I value reading. I think of it as a window into another world and sometimes, I believe, it can change who you are! My son never had a chance not to be raised as a reader...I knew he needed to learn language...I didn't have the first clue what to say to him, so I read out loud to him. Didn't even have to be a children's book. I'd read a magazine or book or cereal box, out loud. I wanted him to hear words. I was a stay home and first time mom. I did NOT want my baby learning language from the television. And....I was just a little intimidated! We also read children's books to him....a lot!
By the time, my second baby came along....I knew a bit more about how to be a mom....I had had lots of practice. I was talking to my toddler all the time and didn't feel the need to read my own books out loud to her, and I was often busy and would forget to read children's books to her. But she is a natural reader. When she was 6 and 7 months old, she would crawl over to the books and pull them off the shelf....regularly. She was trying to tell us to read to her. So we did. And she LOVED for us to read to her. She wouldn't go to sleep at night without us reading to her. Not only was she always reading but she also had us reading to her....up until age 14.
Both of my kids enjoyed reading, but I think this was affected by the school system. When they got to where they HAD to read, they lost some of the love. Not all of it. Thankfully, they still had lots of choices when it came to reading...but their natural desires seemed to fade. There were a few books that we would read out loud as a family (a couple favorites are
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and
The Little Prince). Some of my family have read
Harry Potter books (but I haven't as of yet....and I'm behind watching the movies...currently up to the 5th one and didn't watch my first till November 2010). I wanted the family to read together but not sure how to seal in the tradition. I tried the whole family reading routine and it went okay for a bit, but it lost momentum and not everyone participated all the time. Now, they are 17 and 15 and really have minds of their own. Long gone is the fantasy of everyone reading together in the living room. Or is it?
Enter
The Hunger Games. I can't tell you where I first heard about this book. I heard about it from a couple places and really didn't get it. Really sounds like a book I'd rather not read. I'm just not into teenagers killing teenagers. Sounds barbaric, right? But Hubs and I talked about getting a few books to read that we kept hearing about, which included
The Hunger Games trilogy and
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Then I heard The Hunger Games was going to be a movie.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie came out before I got a chance to read the book (and I still haven't seen the movie because I want to read the book first because....well, just because)! I happen to hear on the radio that The Hunger Games movie was coming out in a couple of months and thought...I can read that book before the movie! I was on a trip by myself, work-related, that I take about once a month. I am gone from about 8 in the morning till midnight. Hubs was home and I called him. I told him
The Hunger Games movie was coming out. We talked a little about it and how if he was going to read it, he needed to hurry up because I wanted to read it before the movie came out. He started it that morning and finished before I got home at midnight. If you haven't read it, it is quite captivating...
How fun was it when I started and he'd watch me reading it and see where I was in the book and smile as I would get frustrated or tense! Then I cried, and when my 15 year old daughter saw me crying...she wanted to read it. I'm not sure why but I think she found it kind of amazing that a book could make me cry. Then we got our son to start....he made an audible "ugh" when he finished the first chapter. Both of my kids started the book before I finished. As my daughter would read, it really was fun to hear where she was in the book and see what she was thinking. My son was either not as interested in it as us or was busy with other priorities or maybe just wanted to be stubborn because we SO wanted him to read the book. But he read the first chapter, then waited.....
We bought our tickets to
The Hunger Games a week or so before it came out. We planned to go on my son's seventeenth birthday. Then he made a plan to read about 5 chapters a night, and he finished it right on the cusp of his birthday. Going to watch the movie (on the extreme screen--which was large and loud) as a family was so much fun! I cried a ton in the movie (I am an easy crier, don't be scared)! I cried just from the emotion of actually seeing this book live. I felt like I knew Katniss and Peeta. I think this movie would have been emotional and exciting without the kids involvement. But it sure was cool for us all to read the book and all to see the movie! And....we have a little time to read the other two before the movie comes out. Hubs and my daughter have already read the second book....my daughter's started the third!
I have to say, there are some deeper underlying meanings to the book that are missed in just an explanation of what the book is about. If you haven't read this book, try just the first chapter and see what happens. Few books grab you that quickly, and
Collins keeps the intensity throughout the book. So hard to put it down at so-called "stopping points"--each chapter end gripped you, begging you to go on! And I think Katniss as a strong female lead in a book is a positive thing for the world to embrace. I think most of us have at least heard about the books and movie by now...
What are your thoughts about the books and/or movie? Does your family have anything where they EXPERIENCE a book together?
