Summertime, Summertime: Watch Out for Those Movie Princes!

Hot summer afternoons and long car trips are a good time for movies.

But Common Sense Media has some common sense suggestions about the overload of popular happily-ever-after movies aimed at girls in their "princess phase." Classic kid movies include not a few Disney princesses or Disneyesque princess wannabes who just need to be sweet and lovely enough to make a prince fall for them, and, as the closing theme music swells, everything's coming up roses forever after.

Of course, we all love a happy ending, but there's nothing wrong with a well-timed parental reminder that fairy stories are just that--pure fantasy. Classic Hollywood movies tend to favor those Cinderella endings for a reason. It's a feel-good closing that makes everyone want to watch another one, soon as soon can be, and that's the way movie makers like it. But it's up to savvy parents to point out that looking gorgeous and whistling while you do heavy housework doesn't always lead to an easy, happy life in the real world. And letting Peter Pan or Cowboy Curly or Professor Higgins call all the shots isn't the only way to find happiness either.

Common Sense Media's writer says, "And as much as we love sharing classic movies with our kids, they tend to have plenty of old-fashioned gender roles. Before you push play, be sure you're ready to have a conversation with your kids -- both girls and boys -- about the messages these films are sending."

And Common Sense Media has suggestions for  movies and books that feature girl heroines who take some responsibility for making their own happy endings, with suggestions for age and maturity appropriateness.

Read their whole article here and follow their links to lists of books and movies with realistic girl characters for preschoolers through teens.

Dire Straits! READING RATES HAVE DROPPED PRECIPITOUSLY AMONG ADOLESCENTS!

This is serious!

In the past thirty years the number of teens who report that they never or hardly ever read has tripled. And that includes the Harry Potter generation of fans.

And we're not talking about War and Peace or Plato's Republic. We're talking about garden-variety science fiction or teen thrillers and romances. We're talking about magazines, graphic novels newspapers, even movie reviews on the iPhone.

It's no wonder that the reading ability scores of high school seniors are exactly the same as they were back in 1984, the year of big hair, "The Karate Kid," $1.10 per gallon gas, and the first Apple Mac computer.

Scores for elementary and middle schoolers have improved. Teachers have obviously been working hard, but apparently practice makes perfect, even for teen-aged readers.

Gaming, FaceBooking, texting, watching endlessly recycled movies and television shows--all deserve some of the blame, of course. But kids in past years had the much maligned comic books, radio shows, movies, and television to compete with reading, and overall scores improved. Now we may be slipping back toward a level of functional illiteracy not seen in over a century.

Common-Sense Media has more statistics and good suggestions for parents who are concerned that their children are losing out on the joys and advantages of childhood reading. Nonfiction introduces new knowledge, takes us into things we don't know, things that compel us. Fiction broadens our world view, letting us live inside someone else's skin for a while as they work through situations we haven't known but may soon experience.

For what to do to give your child the advantages that wide childhood reading brings for his or her future life, read the Common Sense's article here.

Be sure your kids see you reading it and and take time to talk about it with them.

Ah! Summer Reading Time: Check Out This Common Sense List

Schools are out (or coming down the home stretch) and soon long summer days will stretch out ahead of students.  There are lots of great things to do in the summer, but one of the best is having time to flop down on the front porch, on that hard bunk at camp, on a beach towel, or in bed at night with chirping crickets and distant lightning outside the window and just--read a good book.

Common Sense Media offers summer reading aplenty for kids from two to seventeen years old.  Divided into three main sections--ages 2 to 6, 7 to 12, and 13 to 17--the recommendations are subdivided into categories for each age group: bedtime stories, read-alouds, and beginning readers' books for the youngest; funny stories, fantasy and science fiction, coming-of-age-stories, and mysteries and adventures for the middle readers; and coming-of-age and classics for young adult readers.  There are familiar oldies-but-goodies and recent best-selling hits in these lists, with something for almost everyone.

Check out Common Sense Media's suggestions by following this link.