Book Mobile

I've whittled down my book collection significantly, and catalogued the ones I'm keeping in GuruLib.com.  Whew!  I've only got 376 books in my library now!  And that's after giving away at least twice that many.  Sometimes having a plethora of built-in bookshelves is not actually a *good* thing, I guess.  But I sure do love my books.

In the process of cleaning out junk, I came across my original Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book -- the one my parents gave me when I was about 3, where I tried to teach myself how to write.  Oh the scribbles in the book!  They crack me up now.  They also bring me very fond memories of both my parents reading to me, and letting me "read" to them .... gosh I miss them.  Still.

I also found my ancient "French Fairy Tales" book, and my old Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verse".  Wow, I love those books!  The illustrations in "French Fairy Tales" are simple line drawings, but they're exquisite to me.  These books are both so old they have no ISBN's for cataloging purposes.  :-(   My parents read to me from those books, I read them to myself, and then I read them to my children.  It was quite gratifying to learn a few years ago how much our "reading sessions" mean to my now-grown offspring.  And it thrills me to know they read to their children.

When you're an only child, books can be your best friends, your windows on the world, the source of a vivid imagination ... reading is still a great comfort to me. 

Now we have Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and numerous other websites selling books (and a whole lot more), which explains why I had to get rid of SO MANY BOOKS.  :-)

Parents, read to your children.  I'm convinced it creates a special bond between you, one that lasts a lifetime.