Dewey's Read-a-thon: Reading Is Fundamental Mini-Challenge

Joy, at Joystory, is hosting, as part of the Read-a-thon, a minichallenge as readers to create a post celebrating the reading child, in support of Reading is Fundamental.


I've talked a lot on my blog about the role reading has played in my family, from my great-grandmother being a part of creating the first library in her town to my own efforts to turn my own children into readers. My great-grandmother passed down her love of reading to my grandmother (who read until she passed away, even when that meant "reading" by checking out books on audio from the library) who passed that same love on to my father. I've told you about how he used to read to us before bed time; he would lean against the bit of wall between my bedroom and his and the three of us would snuggle up around him in the hall. I have no idea why we didn't go stretch out on the sofa or curl up on someone's bed but we didn't. Perhaps the hallway offered fewer distractions than other places in the house, but I can't imagine that was necessary. My father brought those stories alive. A very early Christmas card of my family actually includes my father holding a copy of the book "Babes In Toyland," as though he were reading it to us.

My husband and I both read to our children from the time they were infants but some of my favorite memories are of the times I came upon one of the boys reading to his sibling(s). First of all, hooray, they were getting along, but, more importantly, reading was clearly something that he felt was fun to do. When my daughter was four and, for the first time ever they all had matching Christmas clothes, I decided it was time to recreate, to some extent anyway, that Christmas card from my youth. We didn't have "Babes In Toyland," but we had more than enough Christmas books to choose from (36 at one point--how ridiculous is that?!). I'm looking that picture now thinking that a) this should never be made into a poster to advocate reading as fun (do they look like they're enjoying themselves?) and b) everyone is going to know that I threatened them that Santa wouldn't come if they didn't stand still and let me take the darn picture. Don't worry. I'm sure that as soon as we got this shot, they were allowed to jump into their little footie pajamas, curl up on the sofa with me and enjoy a few books before bedtime.