A Challenge to Dads

Dads, my challenge to you is not only to read regularly to your kids, but to show them that reading is cool by allowing them to “catch” you reading. Even if you only set aside a half hour a day, it’s something that will stand out to your kids and encourage them to keep reading, learning and discovering the world around them. Here are some great book recommendations for you to read to and with your kids, along with some book ideas for you!

“Daddy, read me a story please!”

Lisa Wheeler’s Dino-Sports series, featuring titles like Dino-Hockey, Dino-Soccer, Dino-Basketball, etc., reads like an announcer’s play-by-play of the game with dinosaurs as the players. Great for sports fans young and old! Also check out the Backyard Sports series by Michael Teitelbaum. This is an easy chapter book series with some amazingly cool play-by-play action and chatter between players.

Any of Shel Silverstein’s poem collections are fantastic to read aloud. You might remember Falling Up or Where the Sidewalk Ends, but have you read Giraffe and a Half or The Missing Piece? You’ll have a hard time saying no when the kids ask, “Just one more please, Daddy?”

“Will you read this book with me, Dad?”

Browse through a Guinness World Records book together or a Ripley’s Believe It or Not. These kinds of fact sound bite books are perfect for discussion, and because they’re short, they’re not intimidating for struggling or newly independent readers! These books are fantastic for “I’ll read now, then it’s your turn” book sharing, too. Also, there are new volumes for every year.

You might remember reading Choose Your Own Adventure books… If you don’t, these are books where you, the reader, get to decide what happens in the story! Every few pages, you’re asked to make a choice and turn to one of two pages, and the choices you make along the way lead you to one of many possible endings. The question “I wonder what would happen if…” is the one sentence that can really spark a person’s imagination and interest, and this book genre always raises that question.

“Cool! Dad reads for fun too!”

Revisit the comic books you grew up with! Look for collections of Batman, Superman, Calvin and Hobbes, the Avengers and the Peanuts you loved when you were growing up.

Take a look at some of the popular tween/teen fiction series: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, just to name a few. They were and still are insanely popular because they reach a wide audience. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy them.

If you’re not a fiction guy, take the time to explore the non-fiction section! There are tons of fascinating biographies, how-to books, sports books, true crime, history and even books about your favorite movies.

Web Resource: Jon Scieszca, popular children’s book author, founded the website www.GuysRead.com. Its mission is to “motivate boys to read by connecting them with materials they will want to read, in ways they like to read.” This site has a huge variety of book recommendations geared specifically toward guys and is a source of books I highly recommend for boys and their dads to read together.

Kansas City resident Sarah Diddle is a longtime reader of “guy books.”