XL Story is an interactive book, where the reader chooses the outcome of most chapters. The story is designed to be interesting, entertaining, and relevant to school-age children in the approximate age range of 7 to 12 years old.
The book is fairly easy reading for children in that age range, although there are occassionally some words they may need to ask you about or look up in a dictionary. The best way to read it, however, is together with your child, or as "bedtime reading," where you would read a chapter to your child each night. That provides an opportunity to discuss the choices in the book.
XL is the main character, who is a boy that is pretty dilligent in trying to do good things. His name "X.L." is his initials, and he is referred to by those initials throughout (pronounced "Excel"). Nevertheless he can make mistakes.
The XL story presents a number of occassions where XL or one of the other characters must make a decision. Some of these decisions are not important, while others have some ethical implications. Because "XL" is a children's book, the decisions are often similar to those that children may need to make in their own lives. The book contains "futuristic" elements to make it more entertaining, but the scenarios are relevant to the world today.
Your child may find it interesting to go back in the book to make an alternate choice, to see "what would have happened" if that choice had been made. In general, the consequences of poor choices are not severe in this book. If XL or one of the other characters makes an unwise decision, typically his friend or one of his parents will rescue him before the consequence becomes too extreme. That enables the character to learn from the choice, and for the story to continue (so that the next chapter can continue from the previous one).
Sometimes when discussing a decision with your child, you may wish to tell your child about some similar experience you have had, or some relevant facts that are outside of the story itself. Or perhaps you child has faced a similar situation, but which differs in some imporant way, and your child isn't sure of how best to handle it.
As one example, a situation of bullying occurs in the story. If you child has experienced bulling, he may wish to discuss it with you further. There are other examples involving honesty (or the lack thereof), fairness, etc.
As a parent, it is probably of concern to you how your child's character develops, for each of your children. You likely want your child to have a happy life in the future, and toward that end you want your child to learn to make decisions that will bring happiness rather than misery. In that case, it will be very important to you what influence you and others have on your child.
The greatest influence you can have on your child for good, is to set a good example by your own behavior.
The next strongest influence comes by spending time with your child, to do things that your child likes to do. This can include playing games, doing sporting activities, watching movies, and reading books together. Reading together presents an especially good opportunity to discuss things with your child.
Many parents with pre-school age child(ren) read books to their child as a bedtime tradition. Very young children especially like this because they can't read themselves, and there are many good books for young children available from libraries and bookstores.
For elementary-school age children, the child can read books by themselves, but often they still enjoy having a parent read to them or even make up a story. Unlike watching a movie together, in a book there is an opportunity to discuss the events as they unfold. If the child asks a question, the story stops while the parent answers it, and then the story continues. That is quite different from watching a movie, where the typical reaction to comments or questions is "Shhh, be quiet, I'm missing it!"
Therefore I suggest that you continue the reading tradition up through the school age years, for as long as your child has interest. The "XL" book is designed specifically to help you strengthen the tradition of reading and discussing choices with your child.
Copyright Arthur de Leyssac, 2017. All rights reserved.
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