The Series Reader

For the kid who only reads series. Some children will not pick up a stand-alone novel, and every one of those children will read fifteen Wings of Fire books in a row. That is not a problem to fix. That is a reader. This shelf is the first book of every series a middle schooler will actually finish, and the box sets for the ones that are already a sure thing in your house. Buy book one. If it takes, buy the set. Nobody has ever regretted a box set on a long winter.

How to use it: reading a series counts as language arts. Narration, a written summary, a letter to a character, a map of the world, an argument about who was right, all of it is real work and none of it needs a worksheet. A kid who reads 4,000 pages of Warriors in a year has read more than most seventh graders read in school. Keep a list of what got finished. Show it to them in May.

Two more things: The Hunger Games Shelf is where this kid goes when they are ready to read what the series came from, and the $49 map builds a year around the reader you actually have. Not sure this is the right shelf? Five questions will tell you.