I LIKE Books!

I've been on a bit of a book-bender this month.  I've spent over $250.

What's surprising is that I'm not spending that much each month.

I grew up with books. My parents loaded a pair of utility shelves with books. That piece of furniture dominates my memories of home. It filled over the years with their college textbooks, "Book of the Month" selections, reference books from Time/Life and Britannica. When my parents signed us kids up with the "Bright & Early Beginning Readers" club, we added our own Dr. Seuss classics to the shelves. By the time I was in high school, my dad had built bookshelves into many walls of all upstairs rooms-- my room, the den & my brother's room.

I've been read to & reading as long as I can remember. I was a self-taught reader, as were my brother & parents. I can remember learning how to pronounce long, unfamiliar words, but there's not a time that I can remember when words were just perplexing jumbles of letters. Our son surprised us by showing us he could read independently by age three. I have no advice on teaching a child how to read. It's just an assumed part of our lives.

If our house was bigger, if we could afford more & nicer bookshelves, if I thought our daughter wouldn't climb the shelves and our son wouldn't try to read content way too old for him, I'd have our house filled with books-- all kinds of books. As it is, it's filled all kid books (a little less than kind.) Never fear, all of the adult books are regretfully boxed up and sitting in my parents' basement. I'll admit, there have been some that I've put in the rummage sale, but those were usually paperbacks of "classics" that I've enjoyed, but have not been in love with; I can always get a copy at another rummage sale. Scott has given up some books, too; I can't say what his criteria have been, but there have been very few selections I've argued against-- not because I didn't want his books around, but because I wanted to respect his decisions (but I did keep some, especially ones that I thought our son might enjoy one day.)

So. I went book crazy this month. Rest assured, they're not all for us. For one thing, I've paid about $40 in library late fees. I know there's NO excuse for that, considering I can renew books on-line anytime of day. But... I don't know... I just don't know. I do know that it doesn't count against my credit record and that the library is grateful for every dollar they get in the face of ever-shrinking funding. If I'm going to pay a fine anywhere, there's no better place than the library.

Then I bought books at the school. They hold two book fairs a year to raise money for their library. The first one, run by Barnes & Noble, was the first of the month. MLB's 2nd grade teacher had a wish-list; I bought her Gorrillas: Gentle Giants of the Forest (the boy likes non-fiction.) For the librarian, I bought Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues Series #11.) For MLB, I bought the first two in the "Pizza Puzzle" series: The Case of the Secret Sauce and The Case of the Topsy-Turvy Toy, and he picked out Going to the Sea Park in the "Little Critter" series. I picked for DLG Splat the Cat and the Duck with No Quack and Splat the Cat: Good Night, Sleep Tight. I got my myself a copy of Christy Jordan's Southern Plate cookbook (finally!), signed of course.

The spending didn't end there; for the whole book fair week, I could shop Barnes & Noble in-store or on-line and have my purchases credited to the school. At the store, I got a copy of If You Give a Dog a Donut for our grandniece, and a copy for our own kids. I then did some Christmas shopping on behalf of my mom; I know MLB's going to love her gifts of Tangrams: Easy to Learn and You Can Draw: Over 80 Drawings to Master (a collection of the most popular You Can Draw books.) [Side note, those selections inspired my mom & brother to buy at Costco a pre-k tangrams book for DLG and for MLB a dinosaur book with punch-out dinos to add to pop-up dioramas.]

Continuing the buying spree last week, I attended a talk given by my favorite professor at Auburn, Dr. Wayne Flynt. He was signing copies of his books; I couldn't resist buying his newest book for myself... and for a friend who couldn't make it to the talk (at the Main Public Library, tee-hee!)... and there might have Christmas shopping....

You'd think I was all "booked," but when I went to the branch library today (pick up a held book, renew some others, pay more fines, yes...) I wandered through the book-sale section. I usually don't see anything that grabs me from among all the current popular fiction; I look for kid books, but rarely find those. Not today! I found a well-read The Berenstain Bears Mysteries: The Galloping Ghost (MLB loves the B. Bears!) And two animal-themed like-new middle-grade novels for next year: Skunk Scout (city boy goes camping with grandpa & know-it-all little brother) and Cyberia (future world where is everyone is "plugged in" but the animals don't like it and want to revolt.) Also a Scholastic Reader, Lvl 3 book of the movie Firehouse Dog; if the kids aren't keen on it, we'll donate it to MLB's teacher. Oh! speaking of donations, there were also copies of Book 1 and Book 4 of the Charlie Bone series that looked like they'd never been read. I grabbed those for the school library! All that literary love for $5.00!

Be warned: there's still one more week left in November, and that week holds "Black Friday," followed a partial week starting with "Cyber Monday." The tomes I could yet amass......