I was never much of a reader as a kid. You could find me somewhere in the middle of a song on the piano, choreographing one of my newest dance routines to ABBA, fishing with my Dad or blazing new trails in the hills behind our house. The thrill of the story & it's words never spoke to me until my college years when I was required to read The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence. I was entranced. For some reason the sadness of the story spoke to me. I wanted more, so I proceeded to digest every one of her books. I realized then what I had been missing all my life. I found new stories and ones not so sad, ones so funny I thought I would die laughing, and others so mysterious I couldn't put it down. The thrill of someone's words sent me on journy's unimaginable. It was the same feeling I had when I made music, pure love.
When my first son was born it was apparent the words spoke to him from the time he could crawl to the book shelf and shove a book in my lap, "moooreeee"he would say. We re-read books so many times, that my son would memorize sentences, mystifying friends and family who would say, "Oh my, reading at such a young age!" My youngest son too was surrounded by books when he was born, being read to from his big brother, mom & dad and grandparents, and and as he grew his instinct moved him to draw the stories he heard. I read aloud stories and novels together with them well into their teen years.
You could say books are a presence in our life like eating or sleeping. The brilliance of text woven into our souls. I kept lists of books over the years of our favourites and decided it was time to share our collection with others. I hope you and your children will find as much joy and adventure in these stories as we did! Enjoy my friends!
