So is everyone shopping away?
For my kids, one of the gifts I’ve always given from me (not Santa) is pajamas and a book. I’ve done it since they were tiny. And finding books has been easy some years, hard others.
But this year it was really fun! I actually researched it pretty heavily. For my 10 yo boy, I started with the ONE book he loved this year (“Flipped”). Seriously, I never saw him read like he did with that book — cover to cover in just a few days. He even read when we were on vacation! (gasp!) I think he liked the relationship of the boy and the girl (being a 10 yo boy and all…). So I did one of those “Customers who liked this book also liked. …” and think I found one he’ll like.
For my 14 yo girl, I looked up on GoodReads what some of the hot books were for girls. She likes romances, but she’s “over” the vampire thing. (The Twilight series was enough for her.) Yet ALL the teen books are about vampires now, have you noticed? (Just walk into the teen section of any bookstore — you’ll see what I mean.) If they’re not about vampires, they’re sort of dark in some other way. Or they’re about Mean Girls in some way. But after looking and looking at lists online, I came across Sarah Dessen, who seems super popular among girl readers, so I selected one of her books. It was fun to look them all up.
My oldest son is swamped with college prep and such, so I didn’t buy him a fiction book — he’ll never have time to read one. The last couple of years I’ve just been getting him silly humor books like Barney Stinson’s “The Bro Code” and such. This year I got him “101 Useless Facts” because he likes that kind of stuff.
Those were my most fun gifts to buy so far!
But just because that gift is purchased, doesn’t mean I don’t love recommendations for those ages — anything you suggest?
That’s a nice tradition – pjs and a book! My kids go back and forth between reading a lot. I think my middle one asked for the most books. You are right, I have noticed a lot of vampire and dark themed books. I was wondering myself why they needed so many similar stories…I wasn’t much of a reader when I was young (kinda like my kids – off and on), but those were the days of Judy Blume and I remember reading a lot of her books. My kids only read a couple of those – they were more into the Goosebumps series and Left Behind for kids and of course the occasional “fact” books like you got Ricky! I am interested to see what suggestions you get here too!
Well I just hope they don’t read this post…why didn’t you say all the wonderful gifts you got for me?????????
Sarah Dessen is the BEST! I love her! I seriously cry when reading her. You should borrow the books when she is done!
Myracle (last name)’s L8tr Gator and TTFN series is super cute. Any of Meg Cabot’s YA series is great.
I do the same thing, my kids have 5 books in their stockings right now. They are 5 and 3 though, so quite a bit younger. 🙂
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Okay, Kristi — maybe I will borrow the Sarah Dessen book. It does look really cute. And I always think about writing YA romances (14-17 range). Mostly because I feel like now is the BEST time since I have “market research” living right in my own home!
You will love buying books for your little ones as they go through all different age ranges — it seems like every age range has fun ones to choose from!