Start today and be done by the end of November, that's the challenge I gave to my nine-year-old son. Everything is more fun if accompanied by words like challenge. Adventure too.
When I was in middle school, my teacher pressed her personal copy of The Hobbit into my hands. She said it would be a challenge. She made me promise to 'give it fifty pages.' It was a struggle, but I did it, and I remember on page 51 being hooked. I went on to read the Lord of the Rings, breathlessly reading to find out how it all ended.
I gave my boy the same advice: Give it fifty. Race you there. Last one to Mordor is a rotten Nazgul.
