Chapter 7: We're alternating reading and listening to it on audio in the car. So far, Morgan prefers my reading (even though the audio is EXCELLENT--highly recommended) because he says the accents are hard to understand and there's no commentary from mom, so I guess we'll be switching to only read-aloud from the book. I can't believe the difference in readability between this classic and today's novels aimed at the same target age-group. I'm not sure that my 8th graders could handle this one. A true testament to how simplified our language has become and how low are standards have gone. Anyway, my 9-year-old is fascinated with the story, so far, even more than with the Percy Jackson series, but he couldn't have enjoyed it as an independent read.

Update: We sort of gave up on reading it--it was much better on CD (I didn't know how to pronounce most of the boring sailing terms and I could never sound like a good Long John Silver like the actor on the tape). My son needed paraphrasing and commentary so often that I had to realize that this was far beyond his level of comprehension, but I did enjoy it. I feel like I hadn't really missed anything not having read it in my childhood because it's alluded to so often and the characters are so part of our culture that I pretty much already knew the story. Overall--it was a fun read/listen, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.