Summer Challenge

Why do schools put parents in this position?  My middle kid, Doodle, is in an "advanced work class," for fourth grade (which he just finished) and fifth grade.  His teacher, who is one of those "tough but fair" teachers you mention in your valedictory speech, sent home a book list/math and reading comprehension packet to complete over the summer.  I've looked through it.  It's a lot of work. The kids in her class (she'll have the same kids next year) have to read four books -- three assigned, and one more off this giant list.

Just to give you some context, one of the books, Divergent, by Veronica Roth, was one I had put aside in my Amazon.com wish list for Boy to read over the summer. Boy, who is fifteen years old.  That book is on my ten-year-old's summer reading list, along with Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Seriously, you people?!  The kid is ten years old. I didn't read Agatha Christie until college, and I was a reading maniac.  (True fact:  the three or four times I  played hooky from school, I went to the public library and hid out in the stacks. No word of a lie.)  I was debating whether he was ready for the first Harry Potter book.


The kids started day camp today, and when I went to pick them up this afternoon, Doodle was curled up on the floor of the gym, fast asleep, using his beach towel as a pillow.  He could barely keep his eyes open during dinner.  (Which is how it should be.  All I ask of a good summer day camp is that they send the kids back to me dirty, hungry, and exhausted.)  And now I have to goad, coax, and cajole him into doing a page or two of math drills.  Doesn't really seem right, that.


It's not like I don't challenge them.  This summer's goal is for Doodle and Scooby each to read twenty-five chapter books (only two of them can be from the Captain Underpants series), at a dollar a book, and if they reach twenty-five, they get a ten-dollar bonus.  (Yes, I bribe my kids; I'm not too proud to admit it.)  Boy's challenge is to read twelve books, at two dollars each, with the same ten-dollar bonus. There's a bonus in here for me, too; it gives me an excuse to get them out of my hair when we go on vacation.  I'm looking forward to a quiet round trip drive to the Berkshires, and an equally quiet flight to Florida, with the children's noses deep in their novels for long stretches of time.  


I felt like that was a doable challenge.  Now, though, having looked at the summer work load for my fourth-grader, I'm tempted to become "Julie McCoy, Your Cruise Director," just to make sure the kid has some summer in his summer.  

Doodle's fine with all this work, though, or at least he's resigned.  The four reading list books will count toward my challenge, and at the same time I ordered them, I bought a third grade workbook for Scooby, just so he won't feel as though she's getting off easy.

And when he's done with those books, maybe I'll read them myself.  I'm sure my brain could use the exercise over the summer, too.