Reading Together with the Family

One more entry for the Read Together Challenge....

Just for the record, Blondechick14.75 isn't the only child I read together with this summer!

Half our family (Mom, Dad, Blondechick and Bantam16) read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, although we didn't do much discussing till the last one had finished it--and even then we had to be careful because Bantam12 is still working his way through the series, and Bantam8 will be ready for them soon! We loved this series and were thrilled to see its Christian basis made explicit in the final novel. (More thoughts on that to come, maybe.)

I haven't mentioned my two youngest kids in the Read Together Challenge, but believe me, I've read more picture books with them this summer than I could possibly think of reviewing here!

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention The Penderwicks, since Jennifer (hostess of the Read Together Challenge) is one of the bloggers who urged me on to it. I got the audiobook version for our road trip to Ohio a few weeks ago, knowing my kids would literally be a captive audience.

I was afraid that my boys would have trouble getting into it, as the Penderwicks are a family of four girls. I was right, initially. And it didn't help that the reader made the 4-year-old Penderwick girl sound too babyish, in my opinion. But soon enough, they were grudgingly admitting that they were enjoying the story.

My 14-year-old daughter related to the oldest Penderwick's romantic interests--tame though they were compared to recent fare--and my sons were captured by the plight of the vacation cottage owner's son Jeffrey, on the brink of being shipped off to military school.

Overall, it ended up being a nice vacation read and an excellent choice for both boys and girls.

For all the book reviews posted for the Read Together Challenge, go here.