Reading and Questions

For Christmas, I got Madeleine the first chapter book in a series called "The Critter Club."  Because Madeleine has been delighted by her newly acquired reading skills, I thought she might enjoy trying to read a chapter book all by herself.  The book was an even bigger hit than I imagined it would be.

Madeleine finished the final chapter on the way to church last weekend, and immediately begged me to buy her the next in the series. 

For a bit of back story, the girls and I had recently had a discussion about Shopkins and the current craze surrounding them.  Julia and Madeleine had been examining Julia's Shopkins poster, upon which Julia can check off which Shopkins she already owns, to figure out which ones she still needs to collect.

ME: That's kind of the sneaky trick the company uses to make money.  They make kids feel like they need to collect all the Shopkins, so that they'll beg their parents to buy more and more of them.
MADELEINE: Oh, yeah, so then parents will spend MONEY buying them!

Madeleine applied the same logic to her book series.  Upon finishing book 1, she exclaimed, "Mama, I figured out the sneaky way these BOOKS try to make money.  By making the books so GOOD that you want to just BUY the next one!"

I have a very different opinion about spending money on a book that encourages my child to read independently, versus spending money on little plastic figurines that look like personified items you can buy in the grocery store.

At any rate, I bought Madeleine the next two books in the series, and just a week later, she has already practically finished reading book 2.  She is so proud of herself, and feels like she finally has a leg up on Julia, in that Julia has never read this series.

MADELEINE: So, Mama.  I thought that after I read all the "Critter Club" books, that maybe Julia would like reading them.  So it can be just like "Harry Potter," how Daddy read all the books to Julia and now he's reading them to ME!

Unfortunately, Julia does not share Madeleine's enthusiasm.

JULIA: But they would be too EASY for me.

What a totally older-sister thing to say.  Sheesh.


Apparently all this reading is giving Madeleine even more food for thought.  Some of the various questions she has randomly asked me lately include:

"Mama?  How does someone who's NOT an athlete get athlete's foot?"

"Mama?  Why is that bank called 'Brookline Bank' if we don't live in Brookline?"

"Mama?  What if someone had a baby in her tummy, and the baby popped up, and then more and more babies just kept popping up?  Then, would it be INFINITY babies? Because infinity does that too?  It goes higher and higher.  It means, like, more and more and more and more and never stopping."

Keep up the reading, Madeleine, and you may find the answers to your infinite (pun intended) questions!