Books

I come from a family of readers, but I thought the gene skipped me because I've never been as much of a reader. I always loved going to the library with everyone when I was little, but then I never knew what to get. And if a book didn't captivate me by the first chapter, I stopped. My mom often made suggestions for me, and that helped. But eventually I only read what I had to for school, (like A Prayer for Owen Meany - MAN, I hated that book!) and then history and medical books - yuck. Kristen pointed out to me the other day that the Twilight books have gotten me back into reading, which is so true. I have been reading constantly ever since. And now I have http://www.goodreads.com/ to help me find books. Then I just order them from the library so that all I have to do is pick them up from the front desk (do you have any idea how hard it is to browse in the grown-up section of the library with little kids? Nearly impossible, believe me). It turns out that Spencer has inherited our reading gene. He has always enjoyed books and reading, especially science. You should have seen him the day he discovered the non-fiction section of the library. It was like he found a candy shop. When I had his parent-teacher conference last week, his teacher told me that he tested at a 5.8 reading level (meaning the 8th month of 5th grade), but he was choosing books in the 2.8-3.0 level. So she said he should read more challenging books. He always reads for about an hour in bed every night; he just finished Charlotte's Web and is now reading Harry Potter! He loves it. But he can wake up pretty cranky from staying up too late the night before. We all know how that is!