Dog Day Reads!!!

Each time I see one of these road-side libraries …. take a book or leave a book…. each exchange requiring nothing….motivated by a simple love of reading and books and sharing, I feel happy!  And this sweet one above gets the cupcake-with-cream-cheese-frosting-on-top prize.  I hope the wonderful someone or two on Lummi Island, Washington who created this are licking the frosting off their lips and fingertips.  A stain-glass window and driftwood handle …… WOW!

If you haven't read a good book or three to or with a child this summer, these Dog Days are the perfect time!  Get at it.

A good place to start is by checking out the Association of Library Service to Children's 2014 list of Notable Books.  This is always where I begin. They conveniently break their selections into four categories - Younger Reader (preschool to grade 2), Middle Readers (grades 3-5, ages 8-10), Older Readers (grades 6-8, ages 11-14), and All Ages (has appeal and interest for children in all the above age ranges).  These library specialists choose books of "commendable quality that exhibit venturesome creativity".  Doesn't venturesome creativity seem the perfect description for what kids should be up to in the summer?

Although you aren't likely to find any of the books on that list in the quaint road-side library in your neighborhood,  your public library or independent book store will surely have most of them.

We are taking our grandkids on a train trip for the next two days.  I hope this experience creates opportunities for venturesome creativity…. but I am headed to the library soon to have a few new books to tuck into our backpacks to insure that it does.

Happy Reading!  Happy Dog Days!

I-CAN-DO-THAT!

As my five year old grand-daughter and I walked through the field,  she got close enough to see the full extent of the rope swing hanging far off the ground in the tall trees.  She slowed and then stopped. 

"I have never been on a swing this high, Noni!"

  I suggested we go a bit closer so we could take a good look.  After I took a turn, she was game....

AGAIN .....

and AGAIN!

My husband is riding his bicycle from Seattle to Portland as I write this.  Last month he completed a bicycle ride over Logan Pass -  the Going-to-the-Sun highway -  in Glacier National Park. Adventure is on his mind.  And this is the time of year when for many many summers I took high schoolers into the woods to test themselves via Challenge Course events and watched amazing things happen when young people took risks.

So we have been talking about how to instill a sense of adventure in children.   How do we add risk to play?  How do we encourage kids to enjoy challenges vs shy away from them?  How do we help them learn about safety by experiencing risk?  How do we teach them that failure can bring wonderful things?

Several months ago I read Todd and Victoria Buchholz' article The Go-Nowhere Generation in The New York Times.  They point out the Stay-close-to-Home, Adventure-Avoidance attitudes in many teens and young adults today and wonder if it is yet another piece of the fall-out from our economic times.
Gever Tulley, founder of a summer program called The Tinkering School, suggests we let kids play with fire!  And he's not totally kidding.

Are we raising risk-averse kids?  I hope not.  But it does seem that our concerns about safety and litigation are getting in the way of instilling the "I-CAN-DO-IT!" attitude that we so desperately need and want our children and young people to possess.