Stories and Short Poems for Kids: A Family Reading Night

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Reading stories and short poems for kids aloud to your children is a critical step in teaching your child to read, but it has a wonderful hidden benefit as well. When you take the time to read to your children you are taking time with them, with no distractions, no cell phone, no computer, no TV. You are showing them that they are an important priority for you. They will love that special time with you, no matter their age.

Many of our read aloud story times have led to some great heart to heart discussions. Reading stories together gives us time to slow down and a reason to talk about things that maybe we wouldn't on a day to day basis. Stories are a wonderful way to teach life lessons, reinforce good choices, model positive morals and open the door to talk about life's difficulties such as sickness or death, dating or peer pressure.

As your children get older and you move into more challenging reading material they will benefit greatly from the discussions that will arise during your story time. Keep communication lines open with your children by simply reading to them. The relationship and communication that your family read aloud times will establish can carry you through what could be some very tough teenage years.

There is simply something magical about stories. We are all drawn into them, no matter our age. Sometimes my older child doesn't feel like joining in our reading times because he's too busy listening to music or on his iPod, but inevitably, as we get into the story he is drawn into the room from wherever he was. He can't help but listen - and usually sits down with us to hear the rest of the story.

Institute a story night in your home this week, and if your older children roll their eyes at you just smile, they will learn to love that special time with you.

Kristina Harding has more tips on establishing a family reading night using stories and short poems for kids and more short story fun at Short-Story-Time.com.

The Destiny of Natalie X by William Boyd

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An aspect of William Boyd's writing that always seems close to the surface of his work is an examination of selfishness. At the very least, his characters fulfil their self-interest. One recalls how the events of The New Confessions or Any Human Heart unfold, how in both cases the central character's aspirations are forever paramount, often to the detriment of those he proclaims to love. But it is probably in his short stories that this theme is best illustrated and his collection, The Tragedy Of Natalie X, does precisely that.

Two of the stories, The Dream Lover and Alpes Maritimes, in just twenty pages each, pursue there ideas in depth. In the first, a student in a south of France university is envious of the obvious wealth and easy-going lifestyle of an American fellow student. This well-heeled American splashes money around, advertises his talents and gets the girls - at least in theory. He even has a desirable Afghan coat. By the end of the story, the narrator has utterly reversed the roles. Not only does he come out on top financially, he goes off with the girl, and even gets the coat. In addition, he has benefited from the other's profligacy along the way.

Another side of selfishness is expressed via responses to temptation, specifically to the proximity of opportunity. Even a man in a stable, happy relationship cannot avoid speculating what a taste of something different might bring. The possibility that it might sour everything else is, of course, never contemplated. In Alpes Maritimes a lusty young man just cannot resist the idea that grass is greener on the other side of the twins. His partner is one twin, his desire might be the other. He years to sample what he seems to see as the merchandise.

So while it is in progress, William Boyd suggests that life may be a neurotic search for ever greater fulfilment, even if that is only imagined. Future promise, it seems, always surpasses experience. When it is ended, however, life seems inconsequential. We live, we love, we dream, we die. And we are soon forgotten, even the turbulence of the journey is soon smoothed. Those with whom we have shared our lives may remember us for a while, but even memory, it seems, is founded in self-interest. Perhaps memory of a deceased is the livings' mechanism of coping with their own future.

The Destiny Of Natalie X, the title story, deals with the making of a film. It addresses pretence and the inflation of egos. But it also makes us think of the mundane and how, for every individual, it remains special, the only possible existence.

As ever, William Boyd uses many different forms to express his ideas. For some readers this variability may get in the way of appreciation of the material. But rest assured, the material is worth the challenge and, if it forms a barrier, then the stories are worth several readings until their challenges are overcome.

Philip Spires
Author of Mission and A Fool's Knot, African novels set in Kenya
http://www.philipspires.co.uk/
Migwani is a small town in Kitui District, eastern Kenya. My books examine how social and economic change impact on the lives of ordinary people. They portray characters whose identity is bound up with their home area, but whose futures are determined by the globalized world in which they live.

In Pineapples

Emotional roller coaster ride to take you, this is a story full of sweet ironies. He related failures and triumphs; Joy white; And loss. It is a hell of a story they were humble beginnings due to troubles, Asian to try another country together with his family. Transmitting sound is written with a passion play gentle words going beyond the intro narration. It marks the character speak for itself-complete with some hints of humor, anti-character flaws. And Yes, the story is simply fascinating as its title.

Narrator takes a seat to tell his story. Narrator starts an hour past his family to Hawaii from the Philippines in 1946. He was introduced in the context of the war in the Philippines suffers from hunger and unemployment in most of the families. For these same reasons, the family was forced to leave the Asian migrant and start a new life in Hawaii. But everything is not as easy as it looks. How many brothers are perceived by the circumstances of misery, you must stay behind. A reunion with his brother at the last, however, hell they are still more story of longing that is ultimately, happiness and love.

Life in Hawaii was not easy. Successes came through hard work and perseverance. Sometimes, it is very difficult to learn, too. The story also reveals high school life spent in primary school and high school. There he learned his paper route business, which led him to be the acquisition of second-hand and as trustee for casual cycling. The story will fall into his life after his shared with friends and adventures elementary Wilson Mando, Randy.

The story is moss12 from the minds of a person responsible for the creation of a place as. If you have already read the last adventures of it, you know that he is Asian-American, now live in Hawaii. This chronicle the experiences challenged to avoid from being hanged from his memory. He came with a collection of stories and to clues about his life. Tagged as "talk story" on the island of Hawaii, this narrative is teeming with enthusiasm and on the life of fulfillment. In addition, he also gives away that references this papaya, mango trees, Kauai Surf and Hawaii that may have you enjoyed from stories. With so much originality, voice, each chapter is an irresistibly less boredom of nationalist-autobiographical account.

She take the reality and fictional – something surely enjoy between cold weather, a hot cup of tea. But like what the author said in the introduction, if you don't know how to listen, then this book is not for you.

Pineapple Sam originated as a fictional character from the mind of Ismael Tabalno Hawaii. Is a person of Asian decided to "write the story ago as when he retired.
I loved her "to talk to Sam pineapple story" when they say in many of his friends and family, now you still hear or read about his adventures.
Http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stabalno