Our Newest Bookworm

To say we are a bookish family is an understatement. All three times Ray and I have moved as married folks, our books far outnumbered everything else (well, everything except for kitchen wares). Before we had kids, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about what books they would like, what we should read together as a family, and on and on. After most of my other daydreams about childbirth and early childhood went out the window, this is the one fantasy that has actually turned into a reality.

Amelia was a "reader" almost from day one. Our 30 to 45-minute one-way commute probably had something to do with it. She started off with the Lamaze cloth books (highly recommend these), and now she loves for me to read chapter books at bedtime.

When Jack came along, I anxiously waited to see how he would take to books. At first, I was worried. He seemed more interested in throwing his books on the ground or using them as leverage to get to something he wasn't supposed to have. But in the last few weeks, he has fallen in love with Skippyjon Jones: Up and Down and Skippyjon Jones: Color Crazy by Judy Schachner and one of Amelia's old favorites, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey and Don Wood. It thrills my soul to have him crawl up on my lap with book in hand and to watch those chubby fingers attempt to turn pages and point at his favorite picture.

So now I'm daydreaming once again about all the boyish and girlish books both he and Amelia will enjoy...Treasure Island, Little Women and Little Men, The Incredible Journey, Nancy Drew and Ray's old Hardy Boys, Misty of Chincoteague and the rest of the Marguerite Henry horse stories, and on and on and on.

I'd love to hear from the rest of you what your favorite books were as kids or what your own kids are reading.

(Quick retail desert update: so far it's going well, but gosh darn! Temptation lurks in my inbox. I never realized how many emails arrive each day from Fabric.com, Amazon, Crate and Barrel, KnitPicks, etc. I've been deleting without reading. If it's on sale right now, it will probably be on sale again one day, right? :-) )