Ricky Ricotta Makes Reading Fun

As a young girl, I loved reading. My first grade teacher had the most awesome reward system ever. Every time we read a book, she wrote the title on a strip of construction paper and taped it to our locker (in the classroom). For every 10 books we read, we got to choose a toy from her secret toy bag. (And yes, the prizes were cumulative, so 20 books meant 2 toys!)

Mrs. Jones would open up her bag and place the toys out for everyone to see. The whole class would gather around and "ooh" and "aah" as the kid(s) with ten books (or more) under his/her belt made his/her selection(s). Not surprisingly, I read over 300 books in the first grade. My strips of construction paper extended up my locker, up the wall, and across the ceiling.

I read all of the Dick & Jane books, and who knows what else. I remember my mom taking me & my sister to the library on a regular basis and I loved picking out books. Eventually I became a big fan of Nancy Drew, the Boxcar Kids, Judy Blume, Little House on the Prairie, Amelia Bedelia, etc. You know, the usuals.

Satchel started doing a monthly book report when he started elementary last fall. For his first book, I worried one month would not be long enough to for him to finish reading it. But by last month, he was able to read his book on his own in about an hour.

This month, he doesn't care about his book report as much as he cares about reading every single adventure of Ricky Ricotta and his Mighty Robot. We went to library last week and requested that all of the books at other branches be sent to us. They didn't have them all, but they had six of them. Warren was assigned the task of picking them up this evening after class. Satchel was literally counting the minutes until he got home.

When he did, Satchel rushed over, grabbed the Mecha Monkeys adventure, sat on the couch and commenced reading. Even though the books are a little silly, and way less awesome than my old favorites, I am thrilled that Satchel is now officially a self-motivated reader.