I took some different books to the Afterschool program where I work and read them to my children. They LOVED it! I took a book from our author study, Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco. It was a higher level picture book and it took about 2 days to read it. It was about a girl spending her summer at a horse ranch and learning to ride horses. My boys were all acting like it was the most boring book ever because they would have rather been playing with their Pokemon cards, but they never took their eyes away while I was reading the story. While I was reading the story, one of my boys kept saying, "There's that old man in the background!", in every picture. He caught before even I did this man who turned out to have a big role in the plot line. I was surprised at how perceptive they all were. I asked them what their favorite parts were and one boy was like, "I don't have a favorite part." (That worried me a little.) Then he said, "My favorite part was the whole thing." I was glad to hear that!
Then I took in The Wildest Brother and Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke and Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. I think Llama Llama Red Pajama should be about a late Kindergarte n reading level, and they loved that too! My boys were especally glad to read The Wildest Brother, since it was more for their type of people. It was a fun experience reading them all of these stories, just to see how much they enjoyed it themselves! I plan to take in a couple of picture books for them each week!