Island of the Blue Dolphins

Our local public schools have a fourth-grade class project centering on the book Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Because my son is friends with many public schoolers, I decided to have him read this book. Instead of reading it on his own, I thought it would be a good idea to read it out loud, together, snuggled up in our chair. I felt I could check his reading skills by doing this. (He's reading better than I thought he was!)

We are loving this book. We can't stop at just one chapter. We started last Friday and have averaged four chapters in one sitting.

Tonight I decided to check online for any teachers guides for this book. Wow, I think this is an extremely popular choice nationally for fourth graders. After clicking on several websites, I felt rather annoyed rather than inspired.

We have often used a book as a jumping off point for learning new things. We read with a dictionary next to us, an atlas, colored pencils and paper. We have great discussions when reading books together. I cannot for the life of me, though, figure out why schools drag this out to a six- to seven-week project.

I have found worksheet after worksheet, chapter by chapter, with questions about the book. As I'm reading through these questions I'm thinking that these worksheets will very quickly drain the love of reading from a child.

How could it take six to seven weeks to read one book? Why over analyze it. If it took me that long to read one book, I'd tire of it rather quickly and find it a chore. This is such a good book we just can't read it fast enough.

Now this takes me back to my high school and college days. I could never understand *why* we had to analyze everything to death. Really, can't we just read the book and enjoy it? Can't we form our own meanings of the book rather than relying on the teacher's? Can't we think for ourselves?

Awhile back I watched one episode of a show called Tommy Lee goes to College. Dare I admit I watched that? It was actually very entertaining. In Tommy Lee's English class, he had to analyze why the author of the book he was reading wrote what he wrote. He shook his head and said, "That's like asking me why I wrote Girls, Girls, Girls. I just did." Could it possibly be that the author was just writing a story with just the reason for wanting to write the story?

Maybe I'm being overly critical. I just don't like analyzing books to death. So I think I'm going to continue to do it my way -- reading, enjoying, keeping a dictionary and atlas close at hand, and loving every minute of it. I'll have DS do artwork from the story on what his version of the Island of Blue Dolphins looks like. And that will be that. Hopefully he'll have memories of a good book, quality time with his mom, the opportunity for him to create his art and a few new vocabulary words.
Our comprehension work comes at the kitchen table. At supper, we share what we did in school that day, and he tells the story in his own words to dad of what we read. He is asked questions for detail.

Do we really need to do more? I think this is the one and only big book project of our local fourth grade. Why limit a child to one good book?