Books

I spent the weekend in Ohio with my two little nieces and nephew. They are 13, 11 and 8 and they don't like to read.  I was fascinated and disturbed by this information.  Reading is so important to me and fills many of my blank and unallocated hours.  What makes a person interested or disinterested in reading?  Parenting, environment, learning ability?  IDK.

What I found so disturbing wasn't that they didn't want to read but they were disdainful of reading and people who read.  They made several derogatory comments about my interest in reading.  For example, we were watching one of the Harry Potter movies and one of the children made a sneering comment that I must not be interested in the movie because "I read the book".  Yes, I read the books and enjoyed them but that didn't stop me from liking the movie version. 

I tried talking to the oldest child about this but I couldn't ever get a clear answer as to why she wasn't interested in reading.  I gave them books as part of their Christmas presents several years in a row and I am pretty sure that they got tossed in the corner and eventually thrown away.  What a waste.   I tried to explain my experience with books and why it was important to me but it fell upon def ears.  She just had her own ideas and she didn't want to listen.

I don't feel that anyone pushed me into reading.  My mother didn't read books for enjoyment and I think her reading comprehension was very low but I know my dad LOVED to read and he always had books lying about the house.  However, I don't remember him encouraging or discouraging me from reading.  He was just a positive example.

There was one book that I read in the fourth grade that really piqued my interest in books.  I don't remember the name of the book but it was about an overweight girl who gets stranded on an island several miles from the shore of her home and the adventure of her living on the island by herself and learning to survive.  My imagination exploded and I had many fantasies about living on that same island and catching fish with spears.  That book was pivotal point in my childhood as my book consumption exploded after that experience.

I wish I could find something like that for the children.  I want them to be enthralled with books and used as a tool to expand their imaginations.  I just don't know if that is possible without daily positive examples around them.  Plus the thought of them never enjoying books makes me sad.

Book Etiquette

I was at book club last week and I though I was going to get kicked out over my treatment of a borrowed book. I was using the 'dog ear' bookmarking system. In my opinion my friends overreacted to the situation.

Let me present the facts and I want to let you be the judge in this case.

Fact #1 – I received the borrowed book after two other book club members had read the book. Fact #2 – I only had the book for seven days.
Fact #3 – I couldn’t find a book mark.
Fact #4 – I turned town the corner of the page to mark my place.
Fact #5 – Dog eared pages are not upsetting to me.
Fact #6 – I turn down pages in my own books as well as borrowed and library books.
Fact #7 – I never ate anything while reading the book.
Fact #8 – The book owner wasn’t entirely aware that I was in possession of the book until she saw me with it at our book club meeting.
Fact #9 – When I opened the book to my marked page during the book club meeting, I immediately heard laud gasps and saw shocked expressions around the sitting area.
Fact #10 – I have been banned from borrowing any future books!

I guess I don’t think what I did was so wrong. I sometimes use a bookmark and sometimes use napkins or random pieces of paper or I even fold the pages down. I don’t find myself to be very organized in this area and I use anything at hand. I like my books but they are only pieces of paper and I guess I don’t covet them or care about bent pages.

Did I deserve this level of censure? Please leave me comments with your answer.

I found the quiz below at this website and the answers in red are mine and the answers in purple are the "correct" answers. I am afraid that I would have failed according to library rules as I got zero right. But I win in my book. How did you do on the quiz?

Library Quiz


1.

What do you do when you have to stop reading your book, but you want to find the right page later?
a. Lay the book open, pages down, on the table or floor
b. Fold down the corner (and what do we call that?)
c. Use a bookmark

2.

How are you supposed to turn the pages so they don't rip?
a. At the bottoms with your thumb
b. Lick your finger then turn the page
c. Lift them at the corner, then turn the page

3.

To carry a book safely, you should
a. Hug it
b. Swing it with your arm
c. Try to balance it on your head
d. Toss it in the air and see how many times you can catch it

4.

Should you eat or drink while you are reading your book?
a. Yes
b. No

5.

If you find a tear in your library book, you should
a. fix it at home with tape or glue.
b. give it back to the librarian and hope she doesn't see it.
c. hide the book and hope everyone will forget it.
d. show it to the librarian so she can fix it with special book tape.

6.

If you want to keep a book longer because you want to read or use it more, you should
a. leave it at home even though it is library day.
b. take it back to the library and renew it.
c. keep it until you finish it.

Books

I have decided to humor my avid readers and not blog about my book reading on this site. In order to make all of us happy I have created a second blog website that will just house my reading list and reflections of books.

If you are interested in my future entries, this is the web address:

http://candacebooks.blogspot.com/

Crazy about a book!

I have been acting crazy these last three days since I started and finished a new book. This book had been recommended to me by a couple different people and on Saturday night my sister-in-law loaned me her copy. I looked at it and thought “This could be good?” but I knew I had to finish this other non fiction book for my monthly book club meeting on Wednesday evening. So Sunday during the day I plodded along with my book club book (I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire). I think that this book is ok but it is dense, dry and a bit hard to read. This is the reason that I am still not finished reading this 200 page book in three weeks.

I have also come to the realization lately that I am not a fast reader. I used to have the perception that since I loved to read and that because I read so much I must be fast. I had a realization last night that I just don’t read that fast. I wish I was faster but then I wouldn’t retain the information.

So, back to the new book. I picked it up on Sunday night at 10:30 and I though I would just read the first few chapters to see if I would like it. The next thing I knew I had read the first 150 pages and it was 2:00am and I had to go to bed. I went to bed thinking about the book and reliving its imagery. On Monday night after I finished my evening’s activities, dinner, The Big Bang Theory and Dancing with the Stars it was 10:45 and I again picked up the book. I thought I am only going to read until midnight and then I will go to sleep. About 1am I noticed how wet my checks were becoming; apparently my eyes were watering because I was so tired, yet I contained to read until 2am. I have now completed about 300 total pages of this book.

Tuesday comes around and again I am very busy after work going to the mall to exchange an item, mowing my lawn and watching the Gubernatorial debate. I am completely exhausted at this point and really need to sleep due to the deprivation in the last few days but I still decide to read more of my book with the promise to myself that I will go to bed at 11:30. I am not able to fulfill that promise and I don’t stop until 1:30am with only 100 pages left. I go to bed wishing I didn’t have to go to work the next day and could sleep in and finish the book, but I know that it cannot happen. I wake up at 6am to go to the bathroom and I decide to turn on my light and continue to read. If you know me at all you know that I am most defiantly not a morning person and I NEVER get up early. I stayed on my bed eating cookies for breakfast because I couldn’t take the time to cook something until I finished the book. I finally finished the book at 7:45am and got ready for work.

I am not sure why I went so crazy except that I loved the story. I used to do this type of thing when I was a teenager but I have not lost so much book self control in many years. But I have to take a break. There are 4 books in this series and I cannot allow myself to get the next book until I get a full night sleep. I still have to go to book club tonight with my head hung low because I didn’t finish that book.

So are you wondering what the name of this FABULOUS book is? It is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I highly recommend it.