Summary: Another reading with my 11 year old daughter.
This is my third reading of Son of the Deep. I read it in 2020 when it was only released digitally. And then I read it again in 2022 after it was released again by Owl’s Nest Publishers. And this summer I read it a third time with my 11 year old daughter. I don’t read as much out loud to my kids as I would like to. But over the summer I try to read to them at least a couple times a week. For the first time, my kids have chosen to read separate books (both by KB Hoyle.) I think they both would like both books, but they are together almost all the time and only 15 months apart, so letting them have something that is just for me and each of them individually has also been a nice part of this summer’s reading.
My daughter likes to read before bed to try to avoid having to go to sleep. So the longer the chapters, the better for her. The chapters seem to increase in length as the book goes on. I am not going to write as much about the story here as I am going to comment about my daughter’s reaction to the book. (You can read more thoughts on the book here.) My daughter had never read the older Hans Christian Anderson version of the Little Mermaid, only the two Disney adaptations. She is a fan of the movies and dressed up as Ariel on one of our trips to Disney World when she was almost 4.
It has been a little while since I have read out loud to her so I think she was a bit reluctant to let me read. I talked about how I both really do like reading out loud and sharing stories with her and giving us something to talk about. But also practically, reading out loud is a good way to expand vocabulary and to learn to understand texts. My daughter struggles with reading and while she really enjoyed reading graphic novels, she does not pick up books on her own that are only text.
She knew enough about the story to predict some broad outlines of the book, but there was a lot of surprises for her because she didn’t predict some of the twists and different plot points. The romance was just right level description for her, it was chaste, but had lots of deep feelings and anticipation and nervousness about being loved.
We didn’t read as much as I wanted to, and I was out of town for nearly two weeks this summer without her and so that cut into our reading time. But once we hit the midpoint of the merman prince being on land, she was fully hooked and asking to read, instead of me asking if I could read to her.
We did have to spend some time going over the conclusion and talking about it to make sure she didn’t miss any of the details that I thought were important to the later books. The books of this fairy tale collection are stand alone stories, but there are some overlapping characters and the different characters do interact at times. Because I have read all three books, this first one more than once, I caught some nuance in the later readings that I missed the first time.
At this point I have read all of KB Hoyle’s books, most of them more than once and I am continue to be impressed with how well these books hold up to multiple readings. There is nuance and depth to the stories that I really love. She immediately wanted to start The Son of Bitter Glass, so we are three chapters into that one. I am reading Orion and the Starborn with my 10 year old son right now and about 3/4 of the way through. I had hoped to get through at least two books with each kid this summer but school starts here in less than three weeks and I don’t think I am going to make it.
Son of the Deep by KB Hoyle purchase links: Kindle Edition, paperback or hardcover directly from the publisher.