Reading Books?

My wife and I are both readers as it happens; my mother is definitely a reader as well as a writer so its natural for us bookworms to be found in a library or a bookstore or even a restaurant, reading a book.

For Joshua, it was interesting in the beginning.   Like his sister, he was an early reader.  In fact, when he was in the park, he was fascinated by the graffiti that was written on the inside of the slides(much to my dismay, since they were a bit much for a kindergarten kid).  

He would read the board books with great glee and a menu or sign with just as much enthusiasm,  and it was a chart or a table, he was all over it. but if you tried to get him to read a narrative story or even a chapter book, for his age, he just couldn't get into it and he would show no interest at all. I wondered all those years, what we could do to encourage him to read a book?

I tried him on the following

• Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone because his sister read it ans enjoyed it,
• A Wrinkle in Time,  by Madeline L'Engle but he didn;t get into that either.
• The Magic School Bus series
• 
  

We even attempted to find some chapter books on Pokemon or Mario.  -  No dice on those at all.

This year, though, something happened.;  something unexpected and it changed . I came home and he was reading a book for school and he said that this one was his all time favorite book(so far).

Forge  by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I had never read the book myself, but here was my autistic son, who had never shown an interest an reading a Narrative story for school and he seemed to understand and enjoy it.

Tonight when I got home, I decided to give this book bit of a read myself to see what it was like,  He had complteted the work on it and the copy is now very dog - eared(just the way I like a book!).

Inside the book was the story of a man who had just recently been freed from slavery during the first year of the Revolutionary War.

The book, told from a first person point of view and written in journal style, was like a window onto another time with sounds and sights that made me feel as I had witnessed these events myself.  It's description of a British Redcoat slowly dying of a musket ball shot in the stomach was vivid to say the least.

I was surprised that he was really enjoying the book itself and I think I once asked him what it was he liked about this book.. I think he told me once, but I had forgotten.  I know that he had read Chains by the same author.

For whatever the reason is, he has now journeyed into the world of story telling and reading which is something my family does and its welcome change.

It seems that every once in a while, he will make these interesting Breakthroughs and I find it pretty remarkable.