Do you read multiple books at once? What about to your children?

[NanceXToo]

If I'm reading a book that I'm really loving, I'll read just that one and nothing else til its done. But sometimes I'll have 2 or 3 books going at a time. I know that can be pretty common with adults who like to read.

 

But I've found that I do that when it comes to read alouds with my 9 y/o daughter, too. I don't know if that's a bad thing! Sometimes I wonder if we should just be sticking with one book at a time.

 

Like, we started reading the "Little House On The Prairie" series together a while back. But we keep stopping to read other books in between. So right now, we're in the middle of one of the "Little House On The Prairie" books.

 

We're also currently in the middle of "Alice In Wonderland" because the Fresh Air Fund Child we just hosted had requested it for bedtime reading and now even though she's left midway through, I'm still reading it with my daughter, who had never read it before.

 

And we're in the middle of a book of Chinese legends for SOTW.

 

AND then there's whatever book my daughter is reading to herself, as well (which is currently an Encyclopedia Brown book).

 

Oh, and she's asking me to start reading Harry Potter with her after Alice In Wonderland (I feel like yelling "Hang on, Laura, Ma, and Pa, we'll be back one of these days, really we will! haha).

 

And this isn't just a one time thing; it was like this pretty much all of last year, too. We were reading the Little House books then, plus we were doing whatever books Oak Meadow "assigned" every three weeks, and sometimes we were doing further supplemental reading on topics we learned about, like when she learned about the Orphan Trains, we read a fictional series together about that, and she'd do her own silent reading, too.

 

It's like she and I ALWAYS have at least 3-4 books going at once.

 

Do you ever find yourself in the middle of more than one or two read alouds with your child? Do you think that, like, I don't know... affects their ability to absorb and really enjoy a given story or something?

[Daisy]

Everyone in our house reads more than one book at a time.

 

We enjoy variety. You just don't know what you'll be in the mood for. I usually have at least one fiction going, a theology book, a homeschooling book, another fiction type, a book of poetry, etc.

 

I'm thinking about each member and I'd have to say that we all have 5+ books each going right now.

[sbgrace]

My husband always has multiple books going at once. I prefer to read one book at a time. We often have a chapter book going and read others as well. But that's for family reading reasons and not the way I would like to do it! My kids would, I think, prefer to read the entire thing in one sitting as well. That's what we do with other chapter books.

[CalicoKat]

yup. One in each room. And a couple on the nightstand too.

 

I think at least one of my kiddos is this way. She's always got a stack of books in her room that she's reading.

[Hunter's Moon]

I think variety is good because somedays I want to read about something serious and scientific and other days I want to read something light and funny.

 

I think having more books going at once also helps me to read more, not only because I need to get them all back to the library, but because I have more to choose from so I don't get so bored so easily.

 

I am reading Sense and Sensibility, Early Man and the Cosmos, a book about Queen Anne, and I just finished Damaged Angels about 2 hours ago. I used to think I would get confused, but only if the books were almost alike in plot or style like Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.

 

I think as long as your daughter is comfortable with this, then it should be fine especially since she is already recommending more books :)

[Wheres Toto]

I do this ocassionally but I'm also a very fast reader (read The Stand in a busy weekend) so I usually will finish one book before starting another. I average a novel every day or two so it won't take long for me to get to the next book.

 

My kids are still very young so I think having too many going at once would be confusing. We may have one, multiple day read-aloud going but the rest of what we read will usually be picture books done in one sitting. Most of our topic books pertaining to our lessons are picture books at this point. I suppose once they are older we may have a science or history read-aloud and a literature read-aloud going at the same time.

[Mom2J112903]

I can't read more than 1 book at a time-I find a book and can't put it down until its done. I usually read non-fiction books and more often than not, books about people's life and what they have been thru. I just finished a book written by a man whom had a Lobotomy preformed when he was only 12. I read it in about 2 days, lol.

 

J is not reading chapter books on his own, yet. We read a chapter of a book a night, at bedtime. Right now we are reading Charlotte's Web.

[Britomart]

I'm currently reading:

 

-The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard

-SWB's History of the Ancient World

-There Shines Forth Christ by Julian Stead

-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

-Finding God's Will for Your Life by St. Francis de Sales

-The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas

 

So . . . yes. :) Always more than one at a time. My husband gives me such a hard time about it!

 

But for read-alouds with my kids, I usually stick to just one. There was one point when we stopped one, read another, then went back to the first, but that's not common for us.

[athena1277]

I read one fiction book at a time. I will occasionally add a non-fiction book also, as I usually can only read those for so long at a time.

 

My dd, on the other hand, reads many books at a time. When I looked at her stack of books she is reading yesterday, I think there were 8, counting the one book I am reading to her. I try not to let it make me crazy. :tongue_smilie:

[happyWImom]

I always have multiple books going at once, and it's definitely rubbed off.

 

For read alouds, we are doing Little Town On the Prairie, The Wind Boy, The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat, and Among the Forest People. Both dd and ds are both always in the middle of at least 2 or 3 books.

 

I read somewhere that it is actually a good thing for kids to read or be read to from multiple books, because it makes them make an effort to pay attention and keep track of the different story lines.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

Goodness yes!

[Chris in VA]

I have one with dd, and dh usually has one going, too.

On our own, we all have several going.

It's like talking to people on the phone--in one day, I may speak with 3 or 4 people, and the next day, pick up the conversation right where we left off.

[mcconnellboys]

We all tend to read multiple books around here. We don't really put one down for very long, though. We try to read at least a chapter every day or every other day until we can get back to it in earnest. We often have 3-4 books going at a time (plus what he's reading on his own).