Feeling
dumb was not the expectation when I made the decision to begin reading the
Space Trilogy by CS Lewis. This series was recommend to me since
I am always on the lookout for great writing. When I embarked on page one of my
journey I quickly realized that this novel was well out of my intellect league.
Not only did I plunge into a pool of vocabulary challenges, but also the
slow, steady, and deliberate cadence of sentence absorption proved too much for
my brain. After page three I gave up and went to sleep. I have a
degree in art, folks. We are visual learners. Who has the movie?
The
rule of thumb for children is if there are more than 5 words per page that are
unfamiliar, the book is too difficult. This book had at least two words per
page that were too difficult so I had to make a decision. Although there
were no AR (Accelerated Reading) points for me to accrue, I decided to look up
the unfamiliar words in the dictionary while accepting the challenge to read
onward instead of giving up indefinitely. My not giving up allowed
Mr. Lewis to teach me an important lesson about properly placed
vocabulary, poignant description, and great writing.
Though
some children are less competitive, and prefer juvenile jargon to a terminology
tussle learning the new words is a valuable asset. In a world of typos,
misplaced letters, acronyms, and misspelled words, a vocabulary challenge
increases their intelligence and improves their writing skills.
I
will let you know how well I like the story. In addition, I will be tossing out
some new vocabulary words for you to grasp. And, if you already know words
like, “malediction” and “sanguine” you should try your hand at Out of The Silent Planet by CS
Lewis. Don’t tell me how it ends though; I won’t be done until 2020.
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