Search & Win

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Who Knew?


For weeks, maybe months even, a commercial for the book pictured above has been advertised over and over on one of our favorite TV channels.  They talk about how rice can save a cell phone and wine can keep away wasps...and every single time the commercial comes on, Christopher asks me to order it, but I never do.  After all...you could probably find all the information on the internet anyway.  But, what I didn't know is that this book would do something no other book has ever done before...something that certainly could not be substituted with anything on the internet...it got my 9-year-old son to read a book without pictures!

Now, Christopher is an avid reader, and has been since we started homeschooling and geared his reading lessons toward his interests!  He will often stay up late into the night reading in his bed...but the only way I've been able to get him to read a chapter book of any kind was to force him to do so as part of his schoolwork.  He would not choose one voluntarily.  He will happily read any picture book or comic book you put in front of him just fine, thank you very much.  But if the book has few to no pictures, he's not interested one single bit...until now!

Here's how it happened.  We made a trip to Wally World (Wal-mart) primarily for some formula for Jayden.  However, I always like to browse a bit, so after checking out the other baby items and electronics, we made a pass through the book section on our way to the checkout.  In our previous browsings, Christopher had found a hot-dog slicer and a car air freshener, both of which he spent the majority of our time in the store trying to convince me we needed to purchase.  I happened to glance down and see the Who Knew? book on the shelf and decided to pick it up and see what it was all about.  Needless to say, a certain not-so-little boy happened to notice and the bargaining began!  He wanted this book and he was immediately willing to sacrifice his previously found treasures for it!

"Please, Mom...can we get it?" He said, followed by a slight pause as he debated his next move, and then without even waiting for my response added,  "I'll put these two (the hot dog slicer & car air freshener) back!  PLLLLLLEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEE!!!!!" (Ok, maybe he didn't carry out the "please" quite that long, but it makes for a great effect, doesn't it?).  ;)

Now, what my little bargainer didn't know was that I had no intention of purchasing either of the items he'd been holding on to throughout the store (or maybe he did and that's why he gave them up so quickly!) and I was seriously considering purchasing the book anyway.  Something else he hasn't quite figured out yet...I'm a sucker for books!  One of my favorite childhood memories is going to the bookstore with my grandmother to pick out a new book.  My grandmother loved to read and I'm pretty sure I have her to thank for my own love of reading!  So...it's no surprise to most anyone that I love to buy books (one look at the bookshelves lining the hallway of my house will tell you that much)!  And if it will encourage my child to read and doesn't contradict with our beliefs, then it's a pretty sure bet I'll buy it for him...he just doesn't know that yet.  ;)

Naturally, I agreed to his bargain - a win-win situation if ever I've seen one!  And he has been reading that book ever since!  Ever so often, he will share with me something he's learned...but mostly, he's reading!  And there's not a single picture in the whole book as far as I can tell...though I haven't had much of an opportunity to check it out, aside from looking at it in the store!

So...while the little boys are sleeping, my oldest son is reading and I am blogging...it's peacefully quiet in our house right now!  And I owe it all to the authors of a book titled Who Knew?  ;)