B is for Bible. That’s how little Christian children learn
it. Bible is simply Greek for Book, which is another excellent B word. I adore
books. They spill over from every shelf and horizontal surface in my house. I
can’t have enough books. And replacement with the Kindle just won’t work. It’s
fine for vacations but I don’t like using it to read.
My love affair with books started early. As a very young
child I collected books, buying one every Friday night at the bookstore with my
allowance. I still remember the price stickers on the back covers, no bar
codes.
As I got older, my books got thicker. I began to break the
spines. I also ate the corners of the paper. I’d pull off a little triangle and
pop it in my mouth and masticate it while my eyes raced across the page. I was
a bookworm, consuming as much of the book as possible.
Later I stopped the paper eating. Not because it was gross,
but simply because it was very difficult to earmark a page when all the corners
had been torn off. I also stopped the binding breaking. Instead, I developed
the habit of rubbing one of my middle fingers against the smooth binding. To
this day, that’s my rule when I loan out a book: don’t break the binding. I rub
the soft pad of my finger back and forth against the soft shiny paper of the
cover while I read ferociously. My eyes still devour the book, but my physical
consumption has ceased.
My 3 year old already has three box sets of books for when
she’s older. Harry Potter, Little House, and Winnie the Pooh. We do read some
of Winnie to her but it’s not her favorite. I keep the other two sets safe on
the bookcase in my office, away from harm.
The best book I've read recently is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. What's the best book you've read lately?
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| Books are important, but you should always leave some space for a cat to nestle! |
I enjoyed reading this so much, as I am a huge book lover also! My adult kids' houses are overflowing with books for their kids, and here its the same. But it is so gratifying to have your three year old grandchild come into the house, and the first thing they do is go over to the shelf to pick up their favorite book, then crawl into your lap to read it!
ReplyDeleteRecently I've ben reading a series of books by Connie Lapallo on the women of Jamestown, the first is called, Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. It turns out I was able to hear her speak to a historical society, and we are related to each other! I do a lot of genealogy, and just traced one of my lines back to Jamestown, so it was very gratifying to meet her.
Wow, how great to meet her AND be related! That sounds fascinating!
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