Our family spends time each night taking turns reading aloud from my daughter’s books. While the reading and family bonding is great, what isn’t always great are the books themselves. We’re not typically a family of quitters, but I’ll admit that we have quit quite a few books mid-chapter when none of us could stomach going one page further. Some kids books are really bad, people. We have resigned ourselves to a lot of classic books because we find few new books that keep my daughter’s attention. Her chapter books have to be either full of mystery, or full of funny. I’m sure that’s probably pretty typical reading requirements for a lot of 10-year olds.
When I heard about the middle-school adventure book series Travels with Gannon and Wyatt written by Patti Wheeler and Keith Hemstreet, I was excited for our family to give them a read. I had high hopes that an adventure series would keep my daughter’s attention, and I wasn’t disappointed. The books are loosely based on real-life twin bothers Gannon and Wyatt as they set out on adventures around the world with their flight attendant mom and international businessman dad. So far there are three books written in the series: Botswana (released May 2013), Great Bear Rainforest (released October 2013), and Egypt (to be released January 2014).
My daughter chose Great Bear Rainforest for us to read together, and she chose Botswana to read on her own. The books are written in a journal form, alternating entries between each of the twin brothers. The brothers’ relationship and interactions with each other are written in an endearing and humorous way such as I would expect twin brothers to act toward each other. I loved that Great Bear Rainforest was not only educational (Did you know bears are mostly fond of salmon eggs and typically only eat the midsection of female salmon? I didn’t!), but was also full of action and mystery. Some nights we read a little longer than normal because we didn’t want to wait until the next night to see what would happen next. We each enjoyed the book and we took turns trying to guess the outcome of the mystery.
My daughter is a 5th grade advanced reader and she had no trouble reading these books herself, although a few words did come up that we had to help her pronounce or define. For us, this only increased the educational value of the book. We all loved Great Bear Rainforest so much and now we can’t wait to start on Travels with Gannon and Wyatte: Egypt. If you have a reader on your Christmas list this year, I would highly recommend this book series.
Do you know an adventure reader who would love these books? One lucky reader will win the entire Travels with Gannon and Wyatt series! Enter via the Rafflecopter below. Also, Travels with Gannon and Wyatt is giving away 3 Kindle Fires in November, and you can head to their Facebook page to enter to win. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
