I would buy more, but my husband insists that we have money for silly stuff like food and gas and house payments. Sheesh.Right now, I've got a shopping cart full to the brim at Amazon.com with kids books. These are really my weak spot. I love full color illustrations -- some of the most brilliant artists are those working in children's lit. And I am a sucker for science-y sorts of books, the kinds of books where you learn a little something in the midst of all the great pictures. Books like Emperor's Egg, and One Night in the Coral Sea, and Actual Size, and Amazing Sharks. My goodness, I could go on and on about cool kids books.
I think I will.
Over in the Ocean, One Tiny Turtle (I'm on an ocean kick), Big Blue Whale, Sea Otter Inlet, Three Little Rigs, Sweet Dream Pie, The Great Gracie Chase, Rain, Rain, Rain Forest, One Nighttime Sea, the list is almost endless. So many wonderful books, it makes my head spin.
My children each have a bookshelf and all three shelf units are overflowing with books. I almost never refuse a request to buy a book -- Scholastic Book Orders is making a mint off our family. We have them in piles next to our beds, great tottering towers of books that we can't bear to put away or that we're meaning to get to as soon as we finish some other book that's grabbed our attention for the moment.
They are a huge source of clutter and they're a storage problem; if we weren't readers, the house would be a lot emptier, but then we would be a lot emptier, too. I love that my children feel they must own books. They like the library, but they love Barnes and Noble.
What would I take to a desert island? Ooooooo. Certainly I couldn't live without Pride and Prejudice and my other Jane Austens (Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion); likewise my Margaret of Ashbury novels A Vision of Light and The Search for the Green Lion. Then there's Harry Potter. And Narnia. And all my Georgette Heyer books. And The Little White Horse and Linnets and Valerians. Brother Cadfael too, I think. Wives and Daughters might have to go in there as well. Those are the ones I read over and over again; they're like stepping into other worlds, grown familiar and beloved from long experience.
New stuff I love: Gregor the Overlander, City of Ember, Holes (not really new but so dang good) The Goose Girl and Enna Burning. My nephew tells me the Alex Rider books are good, so I am adding them to my list of books to try. My 10 year old niece Elea recommended The Unicorn Chronicles and I liked it almost against my will. I mean really...Unicorns? I had flashbacks to a lot of bad decor from the early 80s, but it was actually a good read. More than that; a very good read. The first three Princess Diaries books cracked me up -- what a shame that the cigarrette-smoking, Sidecar-drinking, tatooed eyeliner Grandmere became Julie Andrews in the movie. Another great literary character left in the dust.
I love good young adult lit.
I have whittled my Amazon order down to about $70. Tim said, why don't you take that money and buy clothes? And he's right, I certainly need the clothes, especially since Maggie came along and blew my figure to smithereens. But books are just better than clothes. Hands down. I'll buy clothes next month.
