Reading Slump and Read-Aloud

I love books. Book + snack + comfortable chair + blanket = HAPPY

That said, I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately. I’ve been craving something but can’t quite figure out what it is. I started a bunch of books (different styles, different genres) but just couldn’t get into anything… I finally stumbled on Lisa Black’s books (suspense, mystery, forensic science) and it is brining me out of the funk. The other day, I had to re-read a paragraph in the "Evidence of Murder" about microtubes, repeater pipette, incubators, and slipping timers into pocket when gong to lunch because, hey, I did that! I isolated and purified DNA – probably using similar protocols, too. When I think about my previous career as a scientist, I tend to think about the big picture – the main focus of my research, how it could be applied in medicine, how the results could be published. But the daily hands-on bench work was such a huge part of it. I miss it – neat rows of solutions, bottles filled with buffers, racks with microtubes, those nifty Falcon 50-ml tubes with orange or blue screw-on lids… My trusted pipetters (1 ml, 200 µL, 20 µL, and 2 µL), and yes, that repeater pipette that was super handy when I was doing enzymatic essays and had to dispense very precise amounts of liquid into dozens of microtubes in a very short time.

Besides my personal reading slump that I am recovering from, I am also in a read-aloud slump with kids. The youngest is OK – we are reading “Pippi in the South Seas” by Astrid Lindgren (we already finished the other two books about Pippi, Mio my Mio, and Karlson on the Roof trilogy… I’m going to have to see if I can find Lindgren’s books about Kalle Bloomkvist)

For the older kids – we finished Dune a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to come up with anything else. I read a couple of Sherlock Holmes mysteries to them – and that went OK, but H was not super enthusiastic. I tried reading some of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, but I was having a hard time reading them aloud, like I couldn’t get into it, or couldn’t get the voice quite right and kept stumbling over words… Also, H wants a break from science fiction.

H suggested to continue with Harry Potter (it would be book 6, I believe), but I am not in the mood for HP and, besides, the older kids already finished all the books and C is still a bit young for books 6 and 7.

I want to read something that they wouldn’t read on their own, but I also want it to be fun…

Dear reader, what are your favorite books to read with your children?