Article by Wendy McCance
There are books I’ve read in my life that have made such a big impression on me, that years later, I still take another look at them. As my kids have grown up, I have been thrilled to pass books their way when they needed some inspiration, answers to tough life questions or just a distraction from a day they found boring.
For years I have tried to instill a love of reading in my kids. It’s not the easiest thing to do when reading takes time and technology has made everything such a quick fix that kids get bored easily. Slowing down to read is rather difficult when the world around you is moving so fast. Distractions and lack of patience catch up with kids pretty fast. Even so, I encouraged reading by reading to my kids every night, keeping enough books in our family room that the room looked like a library and always read my own books in front of them.
We have a bookstore around the corner (one of the few storefronts that are still around). My kids have grown up going to the bookstore at least twice a month. They were always allowed to pick out a book or two when we went. Sadly, these stores also carry toys and getting the kids away from the toy section to try to convince them that a book is what they would rather read was rough.
It’s interesting to see what books the kids would gravitate towards. My oldest daughter really wasn’t interested in books until she was in high school. It was a miracle if she read an entire book in a year. By the time she graduated, things had changed and she found some books she really enjoyed. Some of her favorite books were, Divergent, by Veronica Roth and Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert and Several of John Green’s books.
My middle daughter eventually found authors she liked and would read all the books they wrote. Even so, there were still years where she had no interest whatsoever. Some of the books she enjoyed were the books by Kevin Henkes (especially Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse), all of the Lauren Myracle books and the books by Frances O’Roark Dowell. I got lucky in that these authors wrote several books each. It was lucky because she was and still is incredibly picky about what she will read. It takes her forever to find a book she likes, but if she enjoys an author, she will read all of their books.
My son had his favorites too. Out of all the kids he was the one who had the greatest love for stories. It wasn’t uncommon for me to read two or three books in an evening to him. He would even go to bed a half hour earlier if he could spend that time having me read to him. His favorite books were the Encyclopedia Brown books by, Donald J. Sobol, The Mysterious Benedict Society by, Trenton Lee Stewart and all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by, Jeff Kinney.
My husband enjoys a good book, but you will generally only see him reading when it’s too cold to go outside. He loves Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac. He will also read a lot of non-fiction such as books on science, and all types of instructional books.
If I were to list all of my favorite books, the list would be much too long. Just to keep it short, the two books I have loved and read over and over again are Eat, Pray, Love by, Elizabeth Gilbert and The Alchemist by, Paulo Coelho.
What books have been favorites in your family? Does your family read a lot or is it uncommon to see anyone with a book in their hand? Leave a comment and share some of your favorite stories with us.
Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing or social media assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
Latest posts by Wendy McCance (see all)
- Do You Offer Advertising On Your Blog? - January 13, 2017
- Interview with Sasha Johnson, Co-Owner of 6 Degrees of Organization - January 5, 2017
- New Year, New Goals - January 1, 2017
Unfortunately my daughters taste in books is a bit different from mine but that may change as they get old who knows when I am dead and buried and they go through my stuff they might decide to have a look at my books
I remember going through that when the girls were younger. I had all of these books from when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to share with them. They never did get into Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume or any of the other popular authors of the 70’s.
Hi Wendy. I like this topic and that goes without saying because early in my life reading was a grand pet peeve for me. I grew up always seeing my dad’s nose in a book and felt he was missing the great outdoors. In school, I got away with the bare minimum for book reports taking information from the front and back flaps.
After that, I met and married a man who is also an avid reader always having more than one book he’s working on at the same time, plus magazines. I guess the universe has a sense of humor. So, I gave in in my early 20’s and discovered some things I actually enjoyed.
Now, I’m in love with reading and have read the one you mentioned, “Eat, Pray, Love” and a composite of Paul Coehlo’s books, “The Valkyries”, The Fifth Mountain” and “Veronika Decides to Die”. Hubby has them all in his library. I wanted to “The Alchemist”, too, and hubby thought he had it in his library but we couldn’t find it.
I may not have read many classics in my lifetime but I’m enjoying feeding on what I’m discovering as you can see from my Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/15885302?shelf=read).
Thanks for sharing — I loved this. 🙂
I love that you found a love for books. Your husband sounds just like me. If you saw how many books we have at the house, you’d be shocked. One of my daughters sounds just like you were growing up. She’s the one who had to be sold on an author to bother with a book. 🙂
Yeah, Wendy, I guess I can understand it both ways. I think I like it better this way, though, in loving books.
I just think I missed so much over the years having never read many of the classics. I still get baffled with Shakespeare and poetry. I’m like a deer blinded by headlights — huh — it just doesn’t register. LOL 🙂
Trust me, you aren’t alone. 🙂
I know, my friend, and I’m liking it. Have a great week. 🙂