Too Old Too Soon

Of the last 30 books I have read from the young reader classification, all the protagonists are 5th or 6th graders and 11 years old.  WHY??  And in most of these fictional accounts the youngsters behave in a manner much older than most 11 year olds that I know.  I taught 8th graders for 40 years and the books are attempting to move these kids into high school before they are ready.  I also just spent an overnight with 12-16 year olds, and I still believe the books are making their characters way too sophisticated, the 12 year olds at the event just confirmed my beliefs.

The behaviors that belong to older junior high or early high school, appear in these books with baby aged main characters, I can tell you no 13-14 year old wants to read a book about an 11 year old.  All publishers need to do is put all these kids in 8th grade and they would appeal to a much larger kid audience.  Everybody wants to read about kids their own age and those who are older.

So we are left with the later junior high kids moving to teen/young adult titles whose content is at times not appropriate for their age, but more importantly they miss out of all the great reading still available in the kid section.  So would someone please start writing for all the 13 year olds out there??

Lenten Psalm of Awakening

Too lovely not to share, we opened relent with this one and it offers food for thought.  It has been three years and I continue to ignore this spot, maybe it's finally time to wake up.

Lenten Psalm of Awakening

Come, O Life-giving Creator,
and rattle the door latch
of our slumbering hearts.

Awaken us as you breathe upon
a winter-wrapped earth,
gentling calling to life,
spring.

Awaken in these fortified days
of Lenten prayer and discipline
our youthful dreams of holiness.

Call us forth from our prisons
of past defeats and disappointments
and our narrow patterns of being
to make our ordinary lives extraordinarily alive
through the passion of our love.

Show to us during these Lenten days
how to take the daily things of life
and by submerging them in the sacred
To infuse them with a great love
for you, O God, and for others.

Guide us to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
the real works of reform and renewal
of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.

Loving God, help us not to waste these precious Lenten days
of our soul’s spiritual springtime.

Adapted from Edward Hays, Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim