Going to the library

When I was little, we used to go to the library as a family once a week. We went in the evening after dinner, and we could each take home four books. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was often the highlight of my week. Even now I can remember the excitement of sitting in the car with my four new books, and I had usually made a start on the first before we even arrived home. I remember as a teenager a teacher telling me that I wasn't reading enough because I hadn't written much in my reading log. The truth was that I was reading so much that I was too embarrassed to write it all down.

I must admit that I'm a bit slack at taking my own children to the library. I have no excuse, it's on the way home from school and we can detour past it every day if we want to. We do have a lot of books in the house, and I'm lucky enough to receive a good number of review picture books in the post too, so I've become a little lazy. But as Harry's reading improves I'm finding that we don't have any books that he can read himself. He's stuck between the pre-school picture books and longer chapter books, both of which I read to him. He reads his school books so quickly, and they don't change them every day, so I thought we'd pop along and see if we could find any books that he might be able to read himself.

I was really pleased to find a whole shelf of books that are at the right level for him. And he was really excited too. We quickly worked out that all the books at his level were marked with a certain type of sticker, so I left him to choose himself some books from the ones in that range. He wanted to start reading them as soon as he got home, and three of his four had been finished by bedtime. I was so pleased to share his enthusiasm.

It's reminded me what a fantastic resource the library is, and that we are very lucky to have one in our village.We visited straight from school, there are two primary schools on the road, and we were the only people in there. It has made me really determined to build a regular visit into our routine, because it would be a real shame if we were to lose it.