Richland’s Grade 2 students recently reflected on what they believe makes a good book. As a community, we share a love of literacy, and find opportunities to read together and share our opinions and reflections. We thought these ideas about what makes a good book were honest and insightful.

Here are some of their thoughts:

• “A good book has to be funny, exciting and interesting.” (A.K.)
• “Once you read it you want to read it again, you learn stuff you didn’t know. It has to be about something.” (H.G.)
• “It is funny, it’s about what you like. There are interesting characters like princesses, fairies, and happily ever after.” (V.Z.)
• “Something like the Witches, it’s exciting, you want to know what is going to happen next. Something that is your style, that you are interested in.  It has a lot of detail.” (L.D.)
• “When you are reading a book that you are interested in, you feel like you are inside that book.” (A.H.)

And here are the BIG IDEAS they distilled from their conversation:

• Books have to have an adventure,  be funny, exciting and interesting.
• We have to connect to it in some way or we have had it for a long time. It means something to us.
• You can learn something from a book.
• There is a moral or a lesson learned from a story.
• You can learn a good habit.

“It is not true we have only one life to live, if we can read, we can live as many lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.” ― S.I. Hayakawa

Now it’s your turn!  We love hearing from you – What do you think makes a good book?