Once in A Blue Moon & Summer Reading

Mystery solved!

I understand now why Bruce suddenly decided that we are ready to redo the flooring in the whole house.

It was sheer lunacy! That's right. Last night, May 31, 2007 was one of those relatively rare lunar events. It was a blue moon. N. tells me that a "blue moon" means the second full moon in a month.

Have you ever heard the phrase "once in a blue moon."

Getting a husband to actually suggest that "maybe now we ought to do the floors" is a "once in a blue moon occurence.

Today is one of Bruce's 9-80 days.

At Sandia, certain jobs, especially scientists and technical staff jobs, can choose to work 80 hours over 9 days--thus having every other Friday off.

Bruce is taking advantage of his 9-80 day today by touching up his paint jobs on the rocking Adirondack chairs that are destined--finally!--for the front porch. They look pretty good, don't they?

N. has also started to do something rare on the Blue Moon. When we made our weekly library trip yesterday, he signed up for the summer reading program they do every summer.

He has not done that before. Generally, although he reads, he has not been interested in the summer program at the library. I am not sure whether it is the weekly programs they have for teens--such as a class on fractals, a talk about wolves, etc.--or if he likes the prizes--or if he just feels that it was too school-like in the past, but he signed up! He did clarify that he could read what he wanted for the program, though. He remembers the forced fiction reading of his elementary years.

Whether he reads in the easy chair by the window, or in his reading spot in the "jack" pine out front, he has really taken to the idea of making a "life list" of worthy books and recording a certain number of reading hours a day.

At any rate here are the books for this week:

The Legend of Thunderfoot by Bill Wallace (fiction)

Marlfox by Brian Jacques (fiction)

Three Among the Wolves by Helen Thayer (non-fiction)

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (fiction)

The Complete Guide to Fly-Fishing Second Edition by Tom McNally (non-fiction)

Isn't it interesting that left to himself, N. has actually chosen three fiction books?

Throughout the year, my policy has been to recommend certain books but to leave N.'s reading choices to him. I don't want to be told what to read and when. Neither does N. However, our read alouds are mutually chosen, and often have something to do with what he is studying. Over the years, his free-reading has mostly been non-fiction. For our read-alouds, I have chosen a lot of fiction to balance it. Fiction, especially novels, can be difficult for kids with AS. They have to be taught to think about character development and motivation and the purpose of conflict in these books. I think that by allowing a liberal use of comic books and graphic novels, which have an iconic formula for emotions and motivation, plus reading aloud to him with expression and stops for discussion, N. has moved from needing the formulaic illustration of these elements to using the verbal descriptions written in novels.

So now he is choosing to read the novels independently because he has developed understandings that he didn't have before. And he has done it relatively effortlessly, whereas the worksheet and drill approach they used in school simply made him hate the idea of reading fiction at all.