My daughter walked in on me one evening last week as I was watching an episode of Sherlock, a witty and updated BBC television version of the old Sherlock Holmes stories. She asked if she could watch it and I told her that if she read a Sherlock Holmes story (we started with The Hound of the Baskervilles) without getting scared, she could then watch an episode of the program with me. Well she devoured that book and was gone on to read a new one each afternoon.
I would have been scared whit-less if I had read those stories as a pre-teen, but spooky stories have always fascinated my children. I guess they are secure and feel protected enough in real life to really enjoy a creepy story.
Sherlock Holmes has a side-benefit: the puzzles he must figure out are reinforcements of logical principles we work through each week as I take the kids through a logic and critical thinking text book by David Kelley. Oh, and also now my daughter is really interested in psychology as well and spent her leisure time this week reading an undergraduate psychology text we checked out from the library and a clinical psychology book that has a added bonus of reinforcing her statistical analysis skills.
Hooray for homeschooling and allowing your kids to follow their interests!
