Summer reading, part one

I'm reading "The Catcher in the Rye" right now and trying to get a 13 year old girl to read it with me. She's reading, I know, because we talk about it every couple days. I admit, I was more ambitious about it than she was. I thought together, we could read 30 pages every two days. It's been almost a month and she's just crossed the 100 page mark.

I keep telling her she's making me look bad, but her mom understands. Still, we could be doing better. We won't finish all seven books I had planned for the summer. I'm hoping now to get through four.

My plan was to read the following books, in addition to what we are reading now: "Shane," "1984," "The Outsiders," "Treasure Island," "The Grapes of Wrath," and "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

Ambitious? Maybe. Impossible? Definitely not.

We would be through at least two of these books by now but there is a major roadblock and I don't believe it is an uncommon one. There are too many distractions. There always seems to be a TV show to watch, a video game to play, a friend to visit, a nap to take, or a little sister to play with.

I blame technology. At the same time, technology could save my summer reading program. My student is in love with the first generation iPhone her mom is letting her borrow. There is an application which allows downloads of e-books. Most of the books in the program I designed are available and have since been downloaded and are ready to read.

I'm torn on this. I want her to hold the book, to feel it, to feel closer to the millions of people who have held similar books and gone through the same experience of reading these books for the first time. When distilled down to the basics, I just want her to read and if this works, great.

She'll just have to take more notes.