Bringing up a Booklover

When I was a little girl, I remember night after night of laying at the edge of my bed nearest the hallway light to read for as long as I could keep my my peepers peeled.  Other nights, I would sneak into our family's formal living room and sit behind a table in the corner to read while my parents searched to get me back into bed and asleep...

Fast forward thirty years, to April 13, 8:30 in the evening...Lena is upstairs in bed... READING!

Now, of course, by reading I mean retelling stories that we have read time and time and time again; those she doesn't know by heart, she makes up by the pictures on the pages.  She loves books, loves to tell and listen to stories.  My husband and I, both avid readers from a young age, read to Lena and Lucy day in and day out from the first week we brought them home.  In the beginning, it was a way for me to pass the time with my newborn but I believe it not only fostered a love of books but also formed a pocket of time to bond, cuddle and share the words on the page that take us to another place where our imaginations stretch to new folds.  

There are certainly times that I go through the motions - when we are on our 27th book of the day and I am reading it for the 201st time, I know the words and can recite them without thought and let my mind wander to my to-do list and then back to the moment at hand surprised to be closing the back cover  with such mindless ease.  Albeit the books I breeze through, there are many reading moments that I make a concerted effort to be fully engaged in the story, the illustrations, a dialouge about the book.  It is in these moments, that I become a silent observer of the magic that transcends over my daughters as they are engulfed by the tales of a small bird, or a coming of age tale of a girl who gives back to the world, or a fairy tale, or a catchy nursery rhyme, or a jungle story, or a _____________...the possibilities are endless - I love watching the magnetic magic in the eyes of my daughters - the kind of unique sparkle characteristic only in a child's eye.

Lena received a lot of Step Into Reading books for her 3rd birthday, she loves to "read" these aloud.  Her inflection and intonation are nothing short of endearing comedy.