The Cat's monthly book report was due today. He selected The Million Dollar Putt
Perhaps I should be a bit ashamed to admit that I purchased the supplies for his project before he even came home from school. I had an idea about what he'd put on the posterboard, so got some paints, felt, and golf-related stickers. I got sticky numbers (to number the flag,) and some various landscaping things.
He surprised me by deciding to go a different direction with his poster. (I forgot to snap a photo of it - but will once he brings it home again.) He used the felt for the putting area, but chose to create the entire hole instead of focusing on the final putt: he alternated colors of paint for the fairway to create that "groomed" look. He placed a marker at the start of the hole to be the tee. Why not use the sticker of a tee? Because in relation to his course, it was off-scale. ("Mommy, this is WAY TOO big!") I got the same story on the golf cart sticker: "Mommy, the golf cart can't take up this whole section of the fairway!"
In the end, the Cat's poster told the last chapters of the story well. He could map out plot points instead of having a single picture representing the whole book.
The Cat definitely enjoyed the story, although I was worried that his first-grade head might not be able to wrap itself around the romance issue. The bookstore said this was a grade 3-6 book. The "School Library Journal" on Amazon says it is a grade 6-8 book. The age range of the various bookstores lists it for 8-12.
The Cat is only 7. And he doesn't yet have the social understanding of "liking someone" other than a friend. He was a bit confused and scared about Birdie's asthma, but understood when I explained about Bogie's blindness. The nuances of the various relationships (Hunter vs. Bogie, Bogie vs. his dad, and the aforementioned Birdie vs. Bogie) were not really part of the story in the Cat's eyes. He was more interested in the basic plot as it relates to golf. My hope is that when he re-reads the story later, he'll pick up more detail.
I write about The Million Dollar Putt
The way I see it, "hooking" a kid on a book because he loves the sport involved is good enough for a beginning reader. I expect he'll read it again someday, and it will essentially become a different story to him.
