The second day of April brings the letter “B” in the Blogging from A to Z  April Challenge. And, who can think of the letter “B” without thinking about the The Berenstains’ B Book by Stan and Jan Berenstain? Certainly not me. This fun book about “beautiful, baboons blowing bubbles, biking backwards and baby bird’s balloon” is one of my all time favorites. In fact whenever my kids go through their books to donate to our county’s Relay for Life used book sale, and I find that book in the give-away pile, I pluck it out and put it back on the shelf where it belongs.

While I don’t intend for my A to Z blogging challenge to be solely about children’s books, when I found out in my Facebook news feed from my local library that today is International Children’s Book Day, I knew my “B” blog had to be about books. When I look around my house, I see books everywhere – paper backs, hard backs, picture books, chapter books, eBooks (not that we are hoarders or anything – they are stacked neatly for the most part).

I love to read books and write books. As I child many evenings were spent in the quiet solitude of a good book. Both my parents, my sister and I were found lost in our books in silent companionship. My love of reading comes directly from my parents. My mom is a retired school librarian. Both she and my dad were always (and still are) reading a good book. Reading before bed was a nightly ritual in our house and continues to be so in my own family. Aside from the books I read to my daughters, I read on average one to two books a week when I’m not on a strict writing schedule.

As kids my sister and I always looked forward to trips to the library and now my daughters look forward to those visits as well. And the day our Scholastic book orders came in at school was “jack pot’ day. I see that same excitement on my girls’ face when they come home with their book order sheets already circled with the books they want. I admit I may indulge them in buying too many books, but I can’t help myself (which probably accounts for our overflowing book shelves). I love books and so do they!

By the way currently I am coincidentally  reading a book that starts with the letter “B” called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. It is very thought-provoking and is making me really think about my boundaries, but that’s another blog for some other day.

What about you? What books do you like to read? Do you read as a child?

Related articles

• International Children’s Book Day: 15 Tips to Encourage Childhood Reading (gonedigging.co.uk)
• 10 Celebrities’ Favorite Children’s Books (flavorwire.com)