A Fair Is A Veritable Smorgasbord....

What are you doing this weekend? Maybe the Festival of Books?

If you love books and live anywhere in southern California, you should come. Books, authors, illustrators, poets, speakers, booths, food, freebies, crossword puzzles, etc. You owe it to yourself to go at least once, if you can.

My lifelong love is of children's books. I have a lot of favorite children's books - not just "favorites," but loves. My teenage son was looking for a certain picture book recently at home (Flossie and the Fox, a family favorite) and he ended up with several other long-time favorites in his arms - one was Heckedy Peg...By Don and Audrey Wood. Fun stuff.

In Valerie & Walter's Best Books for Children, they describe picture books.

When I am forced to come up with a definition of what makes a good picture book I say that a good picture book is one where the words tell the story without needing pictures and the pictures tell the story without needing words - yet when the two are combined, you cannot imagine them existing apart.

Two other quotes from their book that hit home for me:

Read to them every day that you have them. Read to them until they flat out refuse to stay in the same room with you, and then chase them from room to room with the book in your hand, reading aloud.

Reading together needs to be a constant in your children's lives, a promise that you would not break any sooner than you would break your promise to feed them, love them, or make them wear a coat in winter.

All good points. For me, going to the Festival of Books is a shot in the arm. I look forward to it every year. It firms up my resolve to read to my kids and to push again to help them develop a love of reading for themselves. My mother asked, "isn't that hard, though, to give up a Saturday for that?" Mom, it would be harder not to.