Thursday, July 26, 2012

My kids judge YA books by their covers

So I don't know if any of you saw this, where a 6 year old judges books by their covers, but I thought it was pretty spectacular. It made me wonder what my kids would say about YA books. I originally started with about 15 books, but my kids have little patience and no amount of bribery was going to engage them so I stumbled through as many as I could. You will note that not all of them answered on each one. They kind of picked their favorites.

Also, I should caveat this by saying that my children are precocious readers. My boys have been reading since they were two and my daughter reads more books in a week than I do. So titles did factor into these books in all cases.

5 yr old-- "It's just what it says. It's about saving lives."
8 yr old-- "I think it's a true story."
10 yr old-- "It's about the girl on the cover and there's someone she loves and something bad happens to him or her and she has to save their life."

5 yr old-- "This book is about fighting."


8 yr old-- "I think it's about time travel, but I read the top part."
10 yr old-- "Well, if it's about time travel, then it's where this girl meets someone when she goes back in time, but she can't marry him or her because she's from a different time."

5 yr old-- "This book is about girls and lipstick, maybe not Barbies though."

8 yr old-- "A girl and a boy are friends and they discover something special."
10 yr old-- "It's about a girl who discovers a secret. Or maybe it's 13 reasons why we named our dog after this author."
5 yr old-- "Yeah, it's a book about the dog."

8 yr old-- "It's about a girl who is beautiful and dangerous."
5 yr old-- "And she has a lot of lipstick"
10 yr old-- "It's about a girl who would do anything to be beautiful."

5 yr old-- "It's about a girl who is sad."
10 yr old-- "It's about someone who used to have a privileged life and now she lost everything."

8 yr old-- "This one is easy, Mom. It's about a girl who lives in France who has a crush on someone."
10 yr old-- "Yeah, and it looks like it's a crush on a boy."









And finally, just for fun...

10 yr old-- "This book is about a guy who's a ghost."

22 comments:

Heather Murphy said...

Ha ha! This was cute :) Your children are very insightful

Matthew MacNish said...

Hah! These are so awesome. Those ones at the other post were pretty funny, too.

Alina Klein said...

So great! Smart kids, but no surprise there. :)

Jaime Morrow said...

"This book is about girls and lipstick, maybe not Barbies though." Bahaha! I think I actually snorted out loud at this one. So, so funny! And the 13 REASONS and BEAUTY QUEENS covers were pretty darn great as well. :) Just goes to show that these covers convey certain messages and they might not always be what the author was going for.

Stephsco said...

Very cute!

Emily @ Forever Literary said...

So cute! Children can be so insightful:) I didn't realize how interesting it would be to see what someone thinks a book will be about, just by looking at it's cover, until I read this post. You should do this again if your kids agree:)

Heather said...

Wow, I love their impressions. This is SO much fun! You should do this more often.

Stephanie said...

Love this! Your kids are awesome.

Lori M. Lee said...

This was brilliant XD I love that last one. I need to do this with my 9yo lol

Lydia Sharp said...

This is why I love kids. Thank you so much for sharing!

M.J. Fifield said...

"Maybe not barbies though." That was awesome.

Rebecca Barrow said...

The 50 Shades answer...if only! Seems like it would have been much more entertaining that way, haha!

Christina Lee said...

These are amazing!!!!! so.love.this.idea.

erica and christy said...

Haha, at least you got them to try. I mentioned it to my kids and the six-year-old (who's behind in reading) just told me exactly what was on there (a girl, a tree, etc.) and my 11-year-old, who reads everything, just rolled his eyes at me and walked away. ;)
erica

Suzi said...

That's fun. I'll have to try it with my kids.

Kelley Lynn said...

This was SO fun! :)

Alexis Bass said...

STOP IT - your kids are hilarious and extremely clever. I can't stop laughing at the last one. (I kind of wish it were true and that all male-control-freak books were written by BEE. :) )

Brinda said...

These are so GOOD. Okay. I must be blind and I've read Beauty Queens but never noticed the bullets are lipstick. I must be blind. Your dog must be Jay.

Elodie said...

Awesome!!!! Clearly, your kids are adorable and clever! :D
This one: "This book is about a guy who's a ghost." really cracked me up! :D

Elodie said...

Oh and the 13 reasons why cover and their comments? Priceless!

KatOwens: Insect Collector said...

LOVE these, truly. I like when they kind of nail it on the head without knowing it.
And, is your dog named Jay or Asher???

Lynn(e) Schmidt said...

This was hands down the best blog post I have ever seen. EVER. I snorted at the last one, and enjoyed many of the others. Please post more of these :)