300 Picture Books - The Introduction

I found out about this reading challenge today from a fellow home educator on her blog. We are a book-loving family, and Addie absolutely loves picture books. In fact, today alone she has asked me to read several! So, although we are a little late in the game getting started with this challenge, I think we can still do it (although Jax recommends starting on a lower number now, we are up for 300 by the end of 2015!).

I have a record of all the books we have read together, so I will make an update post very soon with all of them in.

So, what is the challenge? It is to read 300 picture books by the end of the year.

A picture book is defined as a book that uses pictures/illustrations and words to tell a story. The Reading is Fundamental site says: "In a picture book, the illustrations are as important as the text, and both work together to tell the story. When you share picture books with children, be sure to pay attention to the illustrations - reading picture books means exploring the art as well."

If we had started the challenge at the beginning of the year, it would amount to reading 5-6 books a week - easy right? Well, the challenge is to read 300 different picture books for the year, so rereading a book doesn't count, ok?

As of today, there are 296 days left of the year, so that is one a day plus 4... but we have already made a start, I am going to count the books we have already read too towards that target. It isn't cheating either by the way, in my opinion. It is a 2015 challenge, so I will include all the books we have read in 2015 :-).

There is also a hashtag on Twitter, which is #300PBs that you can use to follow the challenge on there.

A note from a Montessori point of view: There is a lot of discussion over Montessori and fiction for the under 6 age group. We tend to pick books that are either realistic in their stories or, where animals, for example, are shown to be talking or doing human things, we talk about that a little and how it is good for the story, but obviously dogs/kangaroos/cats, etc cannot actually talk like we do. It isn't spoiling the fun, before anyone says anything about that! We still love and enjoy reading these books together... ! And we love reading non-fiction picture books too!

One thing we also make sure we do when we read the books is to discuss who the author and illustrator are. In our company, we employ illustrators, so hopefully this will create a point of reference for Addie and Bear as they grow up.

Useful article: Getting the Most out of Picture Books (RiF)