Last week, I allowed our 8-year-old to stay up late on a school night.
It wasn’t the Winter Olympics or a family activity that beckoned. It was a book that held his attention, and he was on a tear.
We live in a texting, surfing and Twittering age where adults can’t even focus for extended time, and here my third-grader was about to finish a novel in a day. I was jealous.
At the library the night before, we had picked up a Rick Riordan novel, the finale in the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series, and he had begged to start reading it immediately. Because he was only a few pages from finishing another book, I refused.
“You need to savor the end of that one before you go starting another one,” I told him. “Tomorrow.”
He gave a heavy sigh and then acquiesced. I smiled, remembering my own delicious anticipation for a long-awaited sequel.
The next morning, I heard his door open around 6:15 a.m. All dressed for school, he giggled with excitement. I faced him in the hallway with bleary eyes and said:
“Do you know what time it is? It’s not time to get up yet.”
“I know, I know,” he said as he headed down the stairs. “I’m going to get my book.”
He read until 7:15 a.m., when we stopped him for breakfast, and then he read some more until 7:45 a.m., when he left for the bus.
I’m not sure what he accomplished in school that day — they had indoor recess, and they continued their preparation for the ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test), but I’m confident he read a few chapters there, too.
When he arrived home, I watched in disbelief as he told his favorite neighborhood friend, “See you tomorrow,” scarfed down a quick snack and then sprawled onto the couch with his book.
“Do you have any homework?” I asked. He grunted no, and then proceeded to read and occasionally cackle for hours.
Because several kids in his class were also reading this series, I contemplated when children’s literature became so addictive. I enjoyed the C.S. Lewis “Chronicles of Narnia” series and Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” series. And the Lucy Maud Montgomery “Anne of Green Gables” books.
But I was able to put those books down for a spell. The last time I helped in my son’s classroom, one boy on indoor recess was glued to Brian Selznick’s “Hugo Cabret” while another was reading J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter.”
