A Book Journal for Kids

I read a fair few books. I love to read. Though for some reason, I suppose simply because it did not occur to me, it wasn’t until a good friend bought me a book journal a couple of years ago that I thought to record all that I read. I shared all about it in my post Keeping a Book Journal and every single book that I’ve read since that has been noted down in that journal.

I find that by pausing between reads like this to write them down makes me reflect on the book and digest and make sense of my feelings about it.

It’s also a really handy way of keeping track of what I’ve enjoyed, authors I’ve tried and so on. I wouldn’t be without it now!

So now that my six year old is independently reading chapter books, I mentioned the idea to her that she might like to do something similar. Oh yes, she loved the concept!

A Book Journal for Kids

Boo uses her journal to record:

Title, Author, Month Read, Her Opinions.

The benefits of keeping a book journal:

– She’s writing for a purpose. At 6, I know it’s great to encourage our children to practice their writing skills and handwriting. However, I’m not one for doing that for the sake of it with her, I much prefer to entice her with ideas so that she wants to put pen to paper.

This is why she has pen pals, an adventure log that she completes after exciting days out (she sometimes insists on taking it and carrying it with her on said days out to fully record all details!) and plenty of pretty stationery for writing stories in and letters.

– Which brings me onto my next point – my daughter has a lot of stationery. I know, this is not surprising as she is mine.

A book journal lends a purpose to one of those many notebooks that she has mounting up.

– As I wrote about in my original book journal post, it is useful to have a record and look back on it. This might be something she keeps doing for some time and she can develop what she writes about each book (at the moment, her opinions are generally ‘I liked it’ or ‘I loved it’.

She’s not a particularly discriminating reader at the moment, I’m sure the critic in her will one day emerge!

– It’s fun to do. My daughter is excited by it, so it gets a thumbs up.

Writing a Book Journal

I don’t know whether this will be a habit that sticks with her or not, but for now, she loves entering her books into it when she finishes them and I think at this early stage in her reading, it gives her a real sense of achievement.

Is this something that your children would enjoy? Would it get them writing?

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10 thoughts on “A Book Journal for Kids”

  1. Great idea though at the moment, our little girl (also 6) does tend to read the same 12 books over and over… until we have another ‘library’ run. She still loves Rainbow Magic! I think she would like to fill out her very own journal but she would have to be in the right mood and I’m certain it would be covered in stickers and doodles and pictures of cats and suchlike… all a part of the fun, I suppose! My only concern would be that she might see it as a chore (we wouldn’t push it on her though and perhaps I ought to start a journal to encourage hers…), so yes my only concern would be the ‘chore’ element and the possibility of a journal taking the fun out of reading. #OverThinking.com !! 😉 Maybe I need a journal for my long blog comments!…

    1. Ah, it can’t be a chore or it misses the point, doesn’t it? My daughter is excited to fill hers out after she reads a book, it sort of rounds the book off for her! And it’s only the chapter books that she reads by herself that go in there, otherwise it’d get to be a silly amount!

  2. Kimberlye Richardson

    Although my girls are older, I do think this is a brilliant idea for younger children to get them to write more. We are all avid readers as well as writers, lovers of stationary, collectors of books, and journal keepers. My younger two are also very creative and have been writing their own stories for years. A trip to the book store or any gifts of pens and stationary excite us as much as many women would get excited over receiving a gift of jewelry. I personally like the idea of keeping a reading log and think I may incorporate it into my reading habits. As part of my English college assignments, I wrote about so many different topics and personal perspectives on authors;however, they were digital and have been lost to an external that is too outdated to retrieve without having a professional pull all of the information off for me. I wish I had written them by hand first as these were written about so many famous pieces that I’d love to access for future recommendations and opinions. There is such an advantage to writing about these and putting thoughts to paper. Our digital age has both its advantages and disadvantages, obviously. I know that had my daughters not been read to at a young age, seen me reading and writing about books, encouraged to create their own stories, etc., that they might not have developed a love of reading and writing. I think that your idea of starting a log at a young age with Boo is marvelous and one day she may become an author or blogger like you. I believe that writing has become a thing that has been lost and many young struggle with putting a sentence together. This is really a great way to bring back paper as well as create better young writers in a time where people take shortcuts on any wiring they do. I look forward to future logs for myself and just might share the ides with my younger daugters as another creative outlet for them.

    1. I am so the same with books and stationery – I love shopping for them and receiving them, even just looking at them! I totally agree about the importance of reading from a young age and also seeing parents doing it and enjoying it. I’m sure these are the things that make my daughter such an accomplished little bookworm and she loves writing in her journal because she sees me writing in mine. She’s the same with snail mail as she has a few pen pals now and likes to write to them when I write to mine. I suspect she’ll be blogging next year… 😉

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