Choosing the Best Books

I love to read, and I want to instill a desire to read in my children from an early age. There are few things I enjoy more than snuggling up on the couch together, reading a wonderful book!

But it wasn’t always this way! I used to dread reading to my children. Of course I still loved the snuggling part, but the books were so boring, so inane, so unworthy of the moment. When I had my first child I had one basic criteria when purchasing children’s books: price. All our books were bought at garage sales, the cheaper the better.

Twaddle

In this haphazard fashion, we amassed a library of what Charlotte Mason called “twaddle”. You know what I’m talking about! It’s those books that make you groan inwardly when your child pulls them off the shelf. I used to try and turn two pages at once when my kids weren’t looking, just to get to the end faster!

It was very hard for me to take the plunge and rid our shelves of twaddle, but it was so worth it! I boxed up all those television spin-off books, the boring books, and the books with recycled story-lines and ugly art work. As I took each book off the shelf, I gave it a little test: if my heart sunk within me just thinking about reading it, it was gone!

While I was at it, I got rid of books that were irreparably torn or which had been colored in. Often those garage sale books were cheap for a reason! Reading ill-cared-for books gave my children the wrong impression about books. It is important to me that they learn to cherish books and to care for them. Finding just one torn or colored in book on a shelf can cause a preschooler to think of coloring in many more!

Only the Best

With nearly empty shelves, I began a quest to fill our home with only the best. Books like Honey for a Child’s Heart and the Five in a Row curriculum gave me a good start in choosing better books for our home. In the beginning, we relied heavily on our library to fill the void on our shelves. I still continued to buy my books cheaply…at used book stores and curriculum fairs, online or on clearance, and even at the occasional garage sale.

The difference was that now I was armed with a list of what to look for. I had a list of great authors in mind, knowing that anything by Marjorie Flack or Robert McCloskey would be worth getting at the right price. I also had a list of particular books that I wanted to find…books we had borrowed from the library and loved, or books which multiple resources touted as “must haves”.

My husband used to tease me with an old Pokemon slogan, “Gotta catch ’em all! Gotta catch ’em all!” because I was so–dare I say it?–obsessed with finding every book on my list, and for an amazing price to boot!

Now, 12 years later, my shelves are bursting with wonderful books. I still have to cull them occasionally, the result of unwanted gifts or titles which didn’t turn out as good as promised. If I feel that old sinking sensation, I know the book is probably destined for Goodwill.

Clearing the shelves of all the unworthy books has made so much more time for the best ones. Reading is always a pleasure now, no matter which books my children choose.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”