At our house you CAN judge a book by it’s cover.
Literally.
My kids like to read. Especially Ruth.
(Although in her case I should say, “My kids like to be read to.”)
And you can tell which books get the most use. The books that look the worst, the sorriest, the dirtiest, the most beat up are the most read and by far the most beloved of the bunch.
All my life I knew when I “grew up” I would have a home full of books. And I knew I would have a great collection and have them all organized and arranged on book shelves to be accessed at a moments notice.
But I also thought they would all be in pristine condition.
After college I still envisioned my collection to look delightful on the exterior but knew that the interior of each book would be filled with marking, underlining, notes, and doodles.
Now that I have children my home library vision has changed again.
My book collection is as I pictured…organized by genre, in alphabetical order, and each book has hidden within its pages notes galore.
(All is as it should be.)
But my children’s book collection…
…well…
The books which aren’t left on the couches, stacked next to beds, or hidden under pillows are piled onto three terrible looking bookshelves. There is no alphabetical order or sorting of any kind. Favorites tend to migrate off shelves and find their way all around the house and even into the van.
And the poor books themselves, as you can see by the photos….they’ve had their covers loved clean off.
I was thinking back to my old home library visions the other day as I was making a sweep of the house and filling my arms full of raggity looking books that needed to be put away for the hundredth time. It was then that I realized something…my children’s book collection was better than I had planned…the books were loved and read and loved some.
And all was as it should be.
Which reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite books. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
As I put the well used books back on the shelf I was happy…because really….who would want a library full of pristine condition books when they could have shelves full of real ones?
Have a good Tuesday everyone.
-liZ
Beautifully said!
We are on our third copy of Goodnight Moon (not that we even need a copy to read it anymore). I kept the first copy that fell apart in my daughter’s keepsake box. It is also the first thing I buy when I hear someone in the family will be new parents for the first time. Love kid books and the love they receive.
We rescue our books from Goodwill. It always amazes me when I find a book that was “real” to me in pristine condition on the shelves of a charity shop. We’ve tattered away quite a few of our favorites and right now we’re wearing the cover off “The Pigeon Wants a Puppy.” It’s the first book Wub ever “read” to me and is now our “You gotta read this!” recommendation. I’ve always loved books and now have a house overflowing with them. (Seven bookshelves in a house that’s less than 900 square feet.) All those piles and drifts of wondrous worlds stacked up on tables and stuck under cushions is the best library ever.
So, so true. Why have a pretty bookshelf if noone reads the books. I’m lucky to also have a little girl that loves to read. Our weekly trip to the library is a date that we both love a lot! So many great books to discover!
This is a precious post!! My daughter’s bed is always covered in books. I guess one day she’ll get too big and we’ll have to come up with a better arrangement. I love that my girls get excited about trips to the library too.
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Thanks for this great post! “The Velveteen Rabbit” is one of my favorite books & the quote is perfect. After taking a children’s lit. class in college, I decided right then that my children would learn to love books. When I was a book sales rep, I started collecting pop-up books. Now that I have grandchildren that live thousands of miles away, we Face Time & Skype & I love, love, love it when they say, “Grandma read me a story.” I’d rather snuggle with them as I read them stories from my collection but I’ll take what I can get.
http://xoxograndma.blogspot.com/
A well loved book is one of my favorite sights 🙂
I often give books to new parents as well…I think books are always a perfect gift!-liZ
We could totally be friends…..my husband always says we have more weight in books than everything else in our house combined! (But I’m not getting rid of any of them any time soon!!!)-liZ
Oh…and I LOVE the pigeon books to!
Lovely!
What a nice post! We love books in our house too, they are everywhere and I’ve definitely relaxed about their condition throughout the years! Raising kids who love to read is very important to me! What is it about books, they are just so special?!
What a wonderful post. This section from the Velveteen Rabbit is one of my most favorite of all. It was beautiful to me when I first read it to my children over 20 years ago, and now that I’m a grandmother, it’s even more beautiful now.