Fearless Reading

In the spirit of encouraging Bobby to be a fearless reader (school's word, not mine), I told him to bring home some books with words, not just comic books. So, in an effort to listen, he brought home two books with actual words. Amazing.

Except, one of the books was, "In The Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak. I have read the book before and have found it to be sort of boring. As we read, we began talking about the illustrations--the little boy in the "Night Kitchen" looks a lot like Max from "Where The Wild Things Are"--with one major exception. He's naked. Super naked and being baked, dunked into milk, etc. The stuff that 7-year old giggles are made of.

In the spirit of not making a big deal out of it (we were doing fearless reading afterall), I Googled the book, and informed Bobby that the book was a banned book. We had a great disucssion on what banned books are and looked through the list. We learned that Harry Potter and How To Eat Fried Worms are also banned. Interesting. Certainly a worthwhile teaching moment.