Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

About two weeks ago, the kids came home and could not stop talking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was not clear how they heard about it, but I have my guess. I think the interest came from dance. The dance studio where they take dance classes has a performance company which competes in regional and national competitions. This year's highlight is a dance based on Roald Dahl's story; the dance features all major characters and all major events. So, my guess is that during their Wednesday dance rehearsal, the 'big kids' showcased the dance, the parents and the dancers and the teachers most likely brought out the name of the story and volia!

I was excited because I did want to read this book with them earlier but they both rejected it. My first step was to grab the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from the library. This was an instantaneous hit. So, I decided to move on and get a good version of the book from the library. This is how I found the colored edition form 2011 which is pictured in this post. We started reading immediately. Even though I intended to read only one chapter tonight, I had continuous requests until we had read the first three chapters. Surprisingly, finding this edition to purchase has proven very difficult. It is simply not available and the colorless version is just not good enough once you have had the colored version in your hands.

I highly recommend this addition. I highly recommend the book too. Just to be clear, we are still reading Ragweed but it is moving slow. Ragweed is a great book but the details, which make the book great, are a tad stale.

Update 6.30.2014: We have not finished either book. Half way through the month we stopped reading Ragweed and started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We are going to finish Charlie in the next 4 days and will aim to finish Ragweed during our vacation in Michigan.

I have started reading to the kids books about the Tropical rain forest. Since the world cup is taking place in Brasil and since we have family ties to that land, I have also chosen books which emphasize Brasil's natural world and culture. I am especially fond of the "Rainforest grew all around" which we pair together with Patati Patata's  A grama foi crescendo pra todo o lado sem parar. Anything with music is loved by my kids so I take full advantage of that. Given that in the rainforest rains so much we also love listening to Chuveiro Chuveiro by the same amusing pair of clowns. Brazil ABCs they find fun because they find similarities between the information included there and scenes from the movie Rio.

July 9,2014: We did not finish Ragweed. I am going to finish reading it and during one of our evening readings give them the summary of the second half of the book. The book is great but is very slow for my kids. They did love Poppy which was shorter and slightly more dynamic and funny.