I have a third grader who is on the cusp of becoming a reader. I mean, he can already read. What I’m talking about, is becoming the kind of person who reads for fun, by choice. Building up that quality takes providing a steady stream of books your child wants to read.
It can be hard, because you have to force the start to many books that he doesn’t know he’ll like yet. And, then sometimes, you are wrong and the book you pressed your kiddo to read doesn’t turn out to be one they like. Too many strikes like that and you can end up doing the opposite of what you want, and make reading into a chore that they don’t want to do.
One solution is to get your kids hooked on books that are a part of a series, or trilogy. Probably the best one for young readers is the Magic Treehouse series. There are tons of those. By the time your reader gets through all of them, they’d be hooked on reading for life.
Unfortunately, for some reason, those books don’t seem to resonate with my kiddos.
Amazon Pre-Order Price Guarantee
Fortunately, many other children’s books are parts of on-going series. Unfortunately, if you hit your goal of creating a willing, and active reader, hitting the end of those series comes all too quickly.
So far, my reader has read through the end of several series, including the 13-Story Treehouse series, which has a new book in a 13-story interval every couple years.
26-Story Treehouse, 39-Story Treehouse, 52-Story Treehouse, 65-Story Treehouse, and coming next year 78-Story Treehouse, and so-on, so long as they keep making money.
He also is a big fan of the Dog Man series. So, when he finished both series we sat down and pre-ordered the next book in both series from Amazon so that he would have them right away when the came out. As an added bonus, the Dog Man one, called Dog Man and Cat Kid came out on December 26th, right when we need a little Christmas vacation reading!
Here is the really great part about pre-ordering from Amazon. First, they ship the book so that it arrives on the release date. In other words, we got it on the first day you can (officially) get it even if that meant that Amazon sent it out two days before the official release date.
The second cool part that I hadn’t really paid attention to is that Amazon has what they call a pre-order price guarantee. To encourage you to order the book right away (and from Amazon, of course) they don’t charge you right away. Instead, they wait and charge you when they ship the book. What’s more, is that the price they charge you is the lowest price that occurs between the day you pre-order, and the day it ships. In other words, there is no penalty for being eager and ordering right away. In fact, the earlier the order, the more likely you are to get the absolute lowest price.
Next up?
The Stick Dog series that seems to have captured his attention. The pictures are rudimentary stick drawings that break up the text, and give the illusion of not so many words per page while still having the entire story told in text. It’s brilliant really. He’s already read three of them, and there are a few left, but I get the feeling, that will be our next pre-order.