I get it now!
The first time I read a Clyde Robert Bulla book was years ago when my three kids were in a homeschool book club. Each of them was in a different age group, so I didn’t have time to keep up with pre-reading three separate books. One group leader chose Bulla’s A Lion to Guard Us for the younger kids, and she was effusive about what a good story it was. At just over 120 pages, I thought I could make time for such a good book. I finished it and thought, “Huh! I don’t get it. There isn’t much to it.”
Recently, I read each of the Bulla books Purple House Press has reprinted, and at first I was as underwhelmed as I had been twenty-five years ago. One day I was reading one with the proofreader “voice” in my head, noting how short, and almost choppy, some of the sentences are and what basic words Bulla uses to describe things–like third-grade readers or something.
The light came on! I felt a little silly for not noticing it before, but it took reading more than one of his stories to see what he was doing. When you open the books, they don’t look like graded readers, which is part of the genius. For a child who has acquired the strength for chapter books, these don’t look like “school work.” They look like the exciting adventures they are, but with three- or four-page chapters, and most with fewer than 100 pages, they don’t appear daunting.
Though the language is simple, the stories are full of nuggets of solid history for the intended audience. In Riding for the Pony Express, the main character, an eleven-year-old boy named Dick has traveled alone by train all the way from New York to St. Joseph, Missouri, to meet his father. But when he arrives, he finds that his father is no longer in St. Jo. He’s gone off to Nebraska to ride for the Pony Express.
Because Dick doesn’t know what the Pony Express is, the adults who help him get from St. Jo to Owl Creek Station have to fill him in on all the particulars, thereby explaining to readers how the Pony Express worked.
A station along the Pony Express route could be a dangerous place, and Dick hears stories about the close calls of many riders and experiences some of the dangers firsthand.
In Squanto, Friend to the Pilgrims, Squanto doesn’t meet the Pilgrims until the last chapter. It really is Squanto’s story. We learn how he came to live in London for many years when he was young, and how he was later sold as a slave in Spain. When he finally made it home to the New World, his years in Europe and his knowledge of English made him especially suited to help the Pilgrims.
The Secret Valley is the story of the Davis family. They travel from their home near the Missouri River to California during the Gold Rush. Father hopes to find enough gold to make them rich so they can have everything they want. Readers learn something about wagon train life on the trail west and the search for gold in California. Though the Davis’s don’t strike it rich, they do find what they really want.
Viking Adventure is an exciting story of young Sigurd, son of Olaf, whose adventure is a voyage to Wineland, a place once said to have been discovered by Leif, son of Erik. Now, one hundred years after the time of Leif, very few people believe Wineland really exists. Sigurd’s voyage is marked by fear and treachery. Once he is home again, he decides he will write down his story so it won’t be forgotten.
If I were introducing these stories to a reader who is still developing the confidence for chapter books, I might try a few different approaches. The font in these is comfortably large, and chapters are short, but if the number of words on some pages still looks like too much, I would offer to take a turn reading every other page. It might be even more fun to choose who will read the words of different characters as though it is a play. At first, I would offer to read all the paragraphs that are not dialogue.
If I were “helping” in this way, I would also limit each reading session to only one chapter. This can keep a child from feeling pressure to finish more than a few pages at a sitting. And it can help build suspense, thus also, the desire to read more.
Another encouraging strategy might be to put a bookmark or page flag at the end of the chapter before your child starts reading so he can see that the end really isn’t far off. Take plenty of time to look at and talk about the illustrations. A good illustrator adds aspects to the story the author might not have explicitly mentioned.
Have fun with these! As my favorite quote from The Redeemed Reader says; “Learning to read should be a quest, not a task, with just enough knowledge to provide the skills to overcome the obstacles for the sake of treasure at the end."