Hello,

I’m Lady Ozma, and I’m a Book-A-Holic.

Now that we got that out-of-the-way, one of the things I love most about homeschooling and living in an area where it gets unbearable outside during the summer is the ability to pull a completely lazy pajama day. What do we do?

We form a puppy pile and we read. That’s right. Read.

Nephi approves of the puppy pile. He tries to see if he can sprawl across everyone, thus cinching the deal on calling us a “puppy pile”. You have never seen anything so funny as one seven pound chihuahua trying to stretch himself across multiple laps. And then giving you a baleful stare that just screams, “So are you going to put that book down and pet me or what?”

I love books. I love that my children love books even more. They read just about anything. Except textbooks. Which is sort of bad, but I get around that by finding non-textbook-like textbooks. History of US mean anything to you? Oh yeah, even I find American History fascinating thanks to Joy Hakim.

There is a lot of talk about how to cultivate a love of reading, but truthfully all you need to do is read. Parents who read raise kids who read. It is just as simple as that. If you show them how important books are, your kids will learn it.

We do not have enough space for books in my house. There’s not a room without a book in it. (Unless you count the bathrooms. I don’t.) It is partly why I get so many ebooks!

I like watching my children find books that I read and loved.  Caramon picked up Lord of the Rings one day and asked if he could read it. Uh, YES! He loved it. (Like there was ANY doubt in my head? Right.) Which made it fun to take him to see The Return of the King at the theatre last week.

Joram’s newest read is Starship Troopers. Another awesome classic! We’ll need a movie night when he’s done, I think.

I like getting recommendations from my kids and I love giving them my own.  It does get a little worrisome when your child brings as many books to you at the bookstore as you collect.  Where’s that money tree when you need it?  I could use one to fund the building of a library in The Kingdom of Sir Megabyte as well as stock the shelves. Wouldn’t that be fun? I’d need to furnish it with some sofas and maybe a mini fridge because I’m pretty sure some of us would disappear into the library for days on end.

So what do you do when your whole family needs a book intervention?

You hit up the local book store to plunder it during the “Going out of business” sale!

Borders announced the closing of the last of its stores. I must admit to not understanding how our store managed to survive for so long. They are hands down the worst Borders on the planet and drive everyone to shopping on Amazon. Yay for Amazon, boo for bookstores. We came home with books for everyone. Even me, because 260 books to read was just NOT enough!

I think I need a book retreat. Me and a giant bag of books and nothing else.

I finished my latest Pepper Martin book today. (Number four, I’m moving along!) I’m now reading a graphic novel called “Autumn”. Yeah, I might be dreaming. I’m debating Cowboys & Aliens next though, in light of the movie premiere in two days.

At some point, I will tear myself away from my own reading list to either edit my books or come up with a reading plan for the next school year. For today, however, it’s snuggling with Joram and reading.

–Lady O