In Love With Reading!

So you know how sometimes you get busy, and you don't read quite so much? And maybe you get out of the habit, and you start doing other stuff for fun? Or life is just so, so full right now. You start to read only in a piecemeal way, one chapter before bed, or while you're in a waiting room, or at the table while dinner's cooking. Maybe you watch a little more TV, or some other quick, easier-on-the-brain form of entertainment. It happens to the best of us. Then something happens: you get out of school for the summer, or you finally move in to the new place, or you go on a vacation and you bring a grocery bag full of books. And you remember what it feels like to fall, Alice-like, down the rabbit hole of a great book. Perhaps not everyone can relate, but I hear about this syndrome from coworkers on occasion, and it's just happened to me.

I got out of classes for the summer a few weeks ago, and while I do read while school is in session, I don't read with the same hedonistic abandon. I read an article in the NYT sometime this year (I can't find it by searching- anyone remember it and can send me a link?) by a mom ruefully admiring how her daughters could read books in one sitting, lying upside down on their bed, or draped over the couch for hours at a time, whereas she never had time to really dive in. She seemed to think this was an affliction of all adults, which scares me a little. While I may not have full grown-up status yet (I'm waiting for the ceremony- it comes with an instruction manual, right?) I call myself an adult, and I haven't lost the ability to, when my schedule allows, drape myself over a sofa and read most of a book in one sitting. I just read a whole stack of novels since summer began, only coming up for air to show up here at work, and I'm relishing the sensation. I hope I never completely lose the time or ability to, as Ramona Quimby's teacher said, Drop Everything And Read. It's just so gosh darn delicious.

-Anna, Kids Books