This summer, my eight-year-old nephew Riley decided that he wanted to start reading the Harry Potter books. I thought he would probably do well with the first two or three, but that the fourth book and beyond might be a little difficult for him. He got off to a bit of a slow start and found the first book confusing, but then he got hooked and just kept going, reading the entire series in about three months. When he finished, he called me and said, “I’m kind of sorry I read them so fast, since there aren’t going to be any more, but I just couldn’t stop.”

Being a voracious reader runs in the family, and for Riley, it was like someone turned on a switch and suddenly he wanted to read as much as possible. He still spends time with his friends, plays video games, and builds Lego creations, but any spare minute he can read, that’s what he does. I told him the best advice I could give him was to always have the next book ready to read, and that I would try to help him find new books.

This has led me to a whole new world of books. I read a lot, but not really anything that appeals to an eight-year-old boy. So based on recommendations and what I had read online, I decided that the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan might be a good place to start. I found out what I could about the series and found out that it was based on Greek mythology. I knew Riley hadn’t studied Greek mythology at all so I figured that I would tell him a little about what I remembered when I gave him the first book in the series.

I gave him The Lightning Thief and told him the basics that I remembered about Greek mythology, and then I said something like, “So Zeus was pretty much the ruler of all the other gods. As I recall, his father swallowed him when he was born, and then he came back out, but I don’t remember how.”

That’s when I realized that Riley was giving me a look that said something like, “Aunt Sara has finally lost it,” and I realized I should probably do some more research. So I told him it probably didn’t matter to the story, and that I would read the book too and we could talk about anything he didn’t understand.

It turned out that he didn’t really need anything to be explained to him in order to read the book. It is a book full of adventure, and the Greek mythology is used in a clever way that adds to the story without really needing to be understood. He’s on the third book in the series now (and is very happy to be ahead of me, as I just finished the second).

I still feel like I have only scratched the surface of what books are out there for kids Riley’s age, so I thought I would ask if anyone out there had any recommendations. Are there any great series or individual books Riley and I should know about?

As a publishing company with frequent reprints, we have to update the information in many of our books to stay current.  Our Elections book needs updating with each election, our geography books need to change the names of countries like Burma to Myanmar, our literature guides need to add the date of death to an author’s bio.  Most of the time, our science books don’t need much updating.  The scientific theories remain the same, and while there are certainly new discoveries all the time, most of the activities and specific information in the books don’t need to change.

Imagine my shock, then, when I discovered in August of 2006 that poor little Pluto had been demoted.  I originally found out from an online article by National Geographic, but started seeing more about it on sites all over the Internet.

There was an immediate backlash.  Protests were orchestrated, bumper stickers printed.

Honk if Pluto is still a planet.

Free Pluto!  Equal Gravity for All Planets!

While I didn’t march with a sign or hang an “R.I.P. Pluto” poster in my cubicle, I did take action.  All of our planetary and solar system books had to be changed.  After some discussion, we decided that we would put dwarf in front of each word planet that referred to Pluto.

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds.  Looking through a science book for all the references to Pluto is a challenge in and of itself.  Then there is the problem of layout.  Let’s say Pluto is on a chart that is labeled “Planets.” We have to decide if we are going to change the title to “Planets and Dwarf Planets” or find room in the chart for “dwarf planet” even if there are no other descriptors for other planets.  The same goes for any illustrations, diagrams, and even answer keys that include Pluto.

How do you handle change in the classroom?  Certainly we’ve all had to adjust curriculum to meet new standards, and it’s easy to talk about specific events that have visible outcomes.  But what about the issues that aren’t as easily adjusted in little minds?  As teachers we know that part of the job is to ‘roll with it’, so what does that look like in your own classroom?  [Food for thought:  Imagine if you'd had to be the one to inform your students that the earth was now round!]

Don’t feel too bad for Pluto.  It did end up getting its revenge.  In 2007, the American Dialect Society chose “Plutoed” as the Word of the Year. The society defined “to pluto” as “to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.”