Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Nate the Great

I went to pick up a few books for Kira to enjoy her last few days of summer with late nights staying up reading. Soon I'll be enforcing bed time and getting her up early for breakfast... but not just yet.

So, I decided to try a chapter book series for her. I think The Magic Tree House is a little beyond her and I don't love Junie B. Jones, so I found Nate the Great. We love Nate!

Here's why he's so great - I'm admit to being a little bit of a literary snob. I love genre fiction and fun reads but if the prose is bad I can't get through it. So many kids books keep the sentences short and simple, but I worry that it's hacking away at the part of their brains that develops a literary sense of style and that they'll never learn proper sentence composition if they're reading stilted, cropped sentences.

The beauty of this series is that the sentences are short and simple, but it's in the style of the hard boiled detective, so it works. Nate is a miniature Sam Spade. The whole book is fun to read, firmly rooted in a literary style, and endearing.

Here is an excerpt from Nate the Great and Me: The Case of the Fleeing Fang:

"Where is Fang?" I asked.

"He ran away," Annie said.

Rosamond nodded.

"Now you have a new case," she said. "Nate the Great Finds Fang."

I, Nate the Great, did not want to do that.

Fang's teeth get bigger every day.

Esmerelda spoke up.

Esmerelda is wise.

"Nate can't solve cases today. This is his day off."

"No problem," I said.

"I will teach all of you how to be a detective. I will teach you how to find Fang. Come in."

I, Nate the Great, said to Annie, "First you have to remember. Remember if there was anything different about Fang today. Any reason why he might run away. Then remember where you last saw him. Remember what he was doing. Remember who was there."

Annie said, "I got Fang ready for the party. I didn't have time to give him a bath. So I feather-dusted him."

"You feather-dusted him?"

"Yes. It makes his fur nice and clean."

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