I love a good list of books to read. At the back of Donalyn Miller's Reading in the Wild there are a selection of lists of books, divided by genre, which have been popular in her classroom. I decided to work my way through some of the historical fiction, having not yet had the weak flame of hope that I might get A to actually read some fiction, extinguished from my heart.
I started with Bud, not Buddy. I'm not sure why, as it wasn't at the start of the list. I might have been sub-consciously drawn to it given that, being an English person between the ages of 19 and 48, I had to read Nigel Hinton's Buddy at school. I was that one that you all hated, the one that actually quite liked it.
Anyway, Bud, not Buddy is actually quite like Buddy in many ways. It's a coming-of-age tale, and there's a lot about music. It's set in the Great Depression, but that's very much a back-drop, and the story is of a boy's search for his father. I enjoyed it greatly. Age 9+
It took me longer to get into Bamboo People, as it started off in a very stilted way, as if it really, really wanted to be a history textbook or essay, but had to be a novel instead, much against its will. It took at least ten chapters to get going, and therefore there is absolutely no chance of A reading it - a book is lucky if it gets ten words before being shoved in the reject pile. It's about Burma, and is, therefore, pretty grim in places - there being more child soldiers in Burma than anywhere else in the world. However, it's a wonderful story of hope enduring in desperation. Age 12+
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