I found this meme about books and reading - very cool! Every week, the site owner poses a few questions, and we all answer them! Totally groovy!

You can click on the graphic to go to the site and read everyone’s responses in the comments section.

Ok, now for the questions…

1. Do you lend your books to other people? If so, any restrictions?

I do, sometimes, lend my books to other people, but, I definitely feel the tug of letting them go.

2. Do you borrow books from other people? (Friends or family—I’m not talking about the public library)

I do, but, I am very nervous about it, and try so hard to be careful with them. And although I might be thoroughly enjoying the book, I am eager to finish it so that I can return it and stop worrying.

3. And, most importantly—do the books you lend/borrow get returned to their rightful owners??

Eeks! This is a tough one, as I must admit I still have some books that I never returned. Oh my - I have two of the Jean Ayers Caveman books that I never returned - those are fabulous books! I feel even more guilty when they are really good books, you know?

On getting my own back, that sometimes happens and sometimes does not. I forgot I loaned one of the kids’ teachers the first Harry Potter book, and we’ve since lost contact with her and I think the kids will never let me forget that. Last summer, however, when I loaned out a Marilu Henner book, I repeatedly asked for it back, because I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to lose the H.P. book, I just completely forgot about I had lent it to her.

Part of me believes that books are wonderful, joyous things and books are our friends - and they should be shared, with love in our hearts.

And the other half of me believes that my books are so precious to my heart, that I really don’t want to trust your grubby hands on them!
GO READ A BOOK!

I want to tell you about a blog by a gorgeous and smart work at home mom. Her name is Tracy and her blog is Mom’s Niche Blog.

Her blog covers many areas faced by us moms, like saving money, organizing our lives, and doing the best job that we can to parent our children.

She also has a bi-weekly newsletter full of all kinds of helpful articles for moms, that you can sign up for right on her blog.

And my favorite category on her blog, is - of course - books!

She, and a fellow mom, have done some book reviews - and I love the way the format in which they review the books - you can check out this category on her site here: Mom’s Niche book reviews.

I may be a little biased, but, I hope they tell us about some more great books!

GO READ A BOOK!

I find some of the best books right here in my own house - in my children’s bedrooms!

When we lived in Dallas, we would go to the school district used book fair every year - and just load up on books!

We all came home with so many, that it is easy for me to have forgotten, or even overlooked, some books that the kids brought home.

So I find gems in their rooms all the time! It is so much fun!

It is like having a used book fair in my house!

I went in to wake up the boys this morning, and I found this:

It is called, Beastly Tales - Yeti, Big Foot, and The Loch Ness Monster.

I grabbed it up out of their room and brought it into the office with me to read today!

It is obviously too young for both Shawn and myself, but, those books are actually really good. I guess you could equate it to getting a World Magazine. Little snippets of very interesting information!

Uh oh! I just got caught! Shawn found his book on my computer tower! Oops! Heehee!

GO READ A BOOK!

Do you remember yesterday when I said that I was going to tell you about that great astronomy website that I found?

You are just going to love this - it is very educational, and extremely funny! I love the ‘new look of science’ these days!

Making it fun! Where were all of these people when I was in school, struggling to understand these concepts as they were so boringly presented to me?

Where was Bill Nye, The Science Guy? Where was The Mad Scientist? Where was The Magic School Bus?

And where was The Deep Astronomer? (I think he was in school, too!)
Well, they’re all here now - and I am loving science! Who knew?

I am just glad that I can love it now so that I can influence my daughter in a positive way, as I know girls often struggle with science.

And with scientists like The Deep Astronomer around, I will have lots of help!

I absolutely love his story about overcoming his math blocks - it is so powerful.

So often, we resign ourselves to just being inept at something - when the only problem is we need another way around.

I was completely sure that history was so not me - that I didn’t get it, couldn’t memorize it, and purely hated it!

How funny, then, when as an adult, I took history classes at the junior college, and not only aced them, but, completely loved them! I ate it up!

My discovering my love for history doesn’t really fit in there, but, my obssesive love for computers definitely does!

I couldn’t stand them! My parents talked about them constantly, and I just thought it was ridiculous, boring, and way too complicated for me to ever begin to understand.

Then the internet came around - and now you cannot get me off of the computer!

See? Now that was another way around - I got to computers through the internet.
The Deep Astronomer got to math through computers.

Interesting!
GO READ A BOOK!

This will be my first year to ever be away from my mother on Mother’s Day! And I am 36 years old! Wow!

I am sure I am going to want to send her something really special and one place that has fabulous mothers day gifts is Dot Flowers.

They have some of the most beautiful flowers - there are two arrangements - one pink and one yellow - that I absolutely love! And that’s ok, because I’m a mother, too!
If, however, you think your mother might be sick of getting flowers, they have so much more to offer, as well! They have wonderful gift baskets, delicious cookies, and even gourmet foods!

They offer same-day delivery, for those of us who are the forgetful or last-minute type shoppers. And they also offer direct delivery from the farms where the flowers are grown! Both of those options sound great to me!

GO READ A BOOK!

I wanted to let my readers know that I am going to be making more efforts to monetize this blog by doing some paid posts.

I have tried to keep any paid posts I’ve done in the past somewhat related to the bookworm world, but, that has left me only doing one post in a period of a few months.

As I am making a concerted effort to make more money with my online endeavors, I am going to try taking a few more posts on different topics.

I do hope to keep this blog as bookworm-y as possible, but, at this time the bookworm crew having electricity takes precedence over ‘un-niching’ my blog.

I hope you will understand and bear with me.

Thank you, sweet bookworm friends!
GO READ A BOOK!

I wonder how everyone handles that? I would love to get a conversation going on this, because, often - I am at a loss as to whether or not I should let my child read a certain book.

Are they ready for it? Is there even anything in it that I should worry about?

When they were younger, screening books was easy - the books were either very quick reads, or my actually reading the book was not necessary, as it was clearly not a book I would worry about. An example being, Little House on the Prairie. Although, I did read about a rather disturbing episode of the show the other day…hmm…wonder if that one is in the book?

There is no possible way for me to pre-read their books nowadays. I read books so slowly, anymore - I am usually in the middle of several books and several magazines and very busy with computer work all at the same time. And by the time I get to bed and get to read, I doze off after a page or two, if I’ve been lucky enough to read that much!

My poor boys would be waiting forever to read books! LOL!

And they devour books like nothing I’ve ever seen! That is one thing this mama bookworm cannot relate to - the super fast reading of a book. Even in my pre-mama days, I wasn’t that fast reading my books. I’d read some every night before bed, and books would take me some time to go through. Occasionally, I would get my hands on one that I just could NOT put down, but, usually, it was a long, slow relationship I had with each book.

Not my boys. Nope. They eat books up like there is no tomorrow! I would never be able to keep up with them!

In fact, the other day I found a really neat website by an astronomer (maybe I’ll blog about it tomorrow…) and Patrick and I were trying to read it together. “Roll up, Mom! Roll up!” Continuously!!

I think part of it is my ADD - I often re-read sentences and eat them up one word at a time, as opposed to one fluid ingestion, you know?

Anyway, so I’ve veered completely off-subject - how ADD of me!
The subject is - pre-teens and teens - how do you make sure they are reading acceptable books?

GO READ A BOOK!

Ok, remember I was the Home Biz of the Week over at The Home Biz Blogger?

Well, Eve also interviewed me for that and she has posted the interview. You can find it here:

Featured Home Business - My Very Own Mail Interview

I tell you, WAHM’s are some of the coolest people! I have thoroughly enjoy working and interacting with them!

WAHM = Work At Home Mom

Thanks a ton, Eve!

GO READ A BOOK!

That is the name of a really great new blog by a stay at home mom of three precious girls. She is always on the lookout for great activities for her girls - fun and educational - and wants to share her finds with all of us. And so, she started Little Fun; Little Learning.

One of my favorite posts she’s made so far is all about some of the great books that she recommends reading to your kids. She actually lists some of my all-time favorites as she discusses Reading with your child.

It really is a great new blog, already filled up with many wonderful resources - you really should check it out!

GO READ A BOOK!

I send personalized letters to children once a month, and in each letter I write, I tell the kids about a wonderful book. I write two letters - one for older bookworms and one for younger bookworms.

Well, I finished writing my January letters yesterday, and I had so much fun searching for animal books to talk about!

I picked two really great ones, and I wanted to share them with you!

For my younger bookworms, I chose Eric Carle’s Animals Animals. This book looks so great and every single time I pick out a book to talk about I want to go out and get it for my kids! I better be careful and not listen to myself too much, or we’ll be living in a box made of books! Heehee! If I had the means available to me, I would have sooooooooooooo many books! It would be fabulous! Like those libraries in mansions with the sliding ladders…. aahhh…

Well! A girl can dream, can’t she?

Ok, ok, back to the book - it is filled with loads and loads of poetry from many different cultures! From Shakespeare to Lewis Carroll, from Emily Dickinson to Rudyard Kipling, from passages in the Bible to Japanese haikus!

And then, of course, there are the amazing and wonderfully colorful illustrations by Eric Carle - most of the animals gracing two pages each! The whale stretches out on four pages!

This book sounds really fabulous! Here it is:

The book I chose to talk about to my older bookworms is The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals. This book looks so awesome! I know, I know - I already said that about the other one, but, I just get so excited about the books that I find! (Hence, wanting to buy them all!) I mean, really, though - just look at the cover:

Doesn’t that look fabulous? I know, I know - you can’t judge a book by its cover, but, you know what? A cover can definitely draw you in! And draw me in, it did!
The best thing about this book is that it is not set up alphabetically, but, rather, in animal groups - mammals, reptiles, birds, etc. There are two great things about this - for children who are just learning to look stuff up for themselves, this can be a lot easier. Also, this will help children to better understand and learn the classifications of animals. Very cool!

The book also has over 1500 beautiful color illustrations and photographs. And it has one of my favorite features of kids books - those little cross reference boxes to help the children find related topics within the book.

Yep - those are two very good books! They get my bookworm seal of approval!

GO READ A BOOK!