St Gabriel Windows

St Gabriel Windows
Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Progressing in reading…stepping stones to authentic works…

This is the sweetest book: an introduction to the writing of G. K. Chesterton’s Fr. Brown Mysteries.  I bought this book for Michael’s Easter basket this year knowing he’d eventually have made It through all 50+ Hardy Boy Mysteries and would need another wholesome detective series to take off on.  If this introduction book appealed to him, he could likely just go right into the adult version of the Fr. Brown Mysteries.  My plan worked :) 

The Father Brown Reader
By Nancy Carpentier Brown

Now Michael has begun reading this one (below):  some of the elevated writing and vocabulary surpasses what he is use to, but he is ready for more elevated language.  The Hardy Boys were a great wholesome way to introduce serial reading that wasn’t too twaddly, but exposed him to the detective-mystery genre.  In between, he read a short version of Sherlock Holmes left to us by my husband’s mother,  which included a few stories and got him interested.  I would imagine once he finishes Fr. Brown, he might be able to read some  original Sherlock Holmes as well.  I am thrilled he is reading at all and as voraciously  - maybe he is making up for the couple years lost to OCDs grip of ruminating thoughts.  That really set him back.  Now, I feel he is progressing nicely with literature and has not only caught up but passed up where he needs to be for entering 8th grade in a classical curriculum.

The Complete Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton

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