Photo CC- By Carol Lin
From the time I was in elementary school, I can remember the summer days and the amount of time I spent reading. I was a frequent visitor of our community’s library where I would check out several chapter books and be back for more a couple weeks later. From about the age of ten to fifteen, we lived a few miles outside of town in the “country.” I can remember setting one of my mom’s lawn chairs on the deck. I’d enjoy the piece and quiet and just read….for hours!
As the years have gone by, not much has changed. I still love grabbing my current chapter book and catching some rays while reading on our deck. During summer vacations, I can’t go without a good novel. On our honeymoon, my husband “people watched” while I devoured an awesome book about an Army nurse during World War II. He kept asking me if I was bored of reading. My response…um NO, NEVER! 🙂 Almost every summer my sister and I travel to Vegas to visit our aunt. Our favorite pass-time is reading at her pool. Whether we are laying on floating chairs in the water or sitting pool-side, we both can spend hours soaking up the sun and our books.
Photo CC- By tchelseat
Now that our precious baby girl is here, my reading time has significantly decreased. I don’t like to admit that, but it’s the truth. We’ve had issues with tummy troubles, reflux, colic, and a hip/leg injury. I strongly dislike excuses because I feel like they don’t get a person anywhere, but when I’ve looked back over the last almost 7 weeks, I’ve realized the truth behind my lack of reading has been lack of time. I’m not sad about my decline in reading hours because I’ve been able to spend such quality time with my daughter giving her the care she needs!
As for this summer, I hope that I can pick back up a little, but we shall see! Donalyn Miller discusses in her article, “Summer Reading Plans,” the idea of a book-a-day. This is more than possible with picture books, as I already read to my 6 1/2 week old daughter a lot. As for my own novels, I will continue to shoot for a novel or two a week. I will have about a month break before I start my next grad class, so hopefully I will have a little extra time for reading. I have numerous, I mean A LOT, of books on my TBR list, so I’d love to navigate my way through those. I also have a few books I want to check out in hopes of selecting a new class-wide novel to teach.
Lots of plans, which means a busy summer is on the way! 🙂
Precious Palabras 