My New (Old) Read-a-loud Find

This year I have found the perfect series of read-a-louds. It's been a collection of books that has sat virtually silent in a corner of my library for the past six years. We quickly blew through the first in the series and have nearly completed our second. It is a series that keeps the students on the edges of their seats. They love the mystery, they laugh aloud at some of the things that the kids in the books are faced with. And I love stopping in the good spot and hearing them beg me to continue reading. And most of the time, I make them wait until the next day. I LOVE cliff hangers. This little series is actually a series that I grew up reading, or rather, hearing on the radio. Every afternoon on our way home a show called The Captain's Club came on at 4:00. And the second half of the show was a reading of The Sugar Creek Gang. 

After reading the first book in the series, I introduced the students to the procedures of our classroom library. And guess where they headed? You guessed it, to the box of books from the series, The Sugar Creek Gang. They made quite a dent in that book box. There are something like 36 books in the series and I have never, in six years seen anyone finish one. But after reading them aloud, they were in high demand....even disappearing from student's book boxes upon occasion...oops.

Oh, and I should mention that The Captain's Club still plays on Moody Radio. I knew this, but did not tell my students. Well, one of them came in to class all excited about hearing The Sugar Creek Gang on the radio. How fun.