Buying books

We get the Scholastic flyers from school about every two months, but they seem like just another catalog. Not like when I was a kid, choosing and erasing so many times the order strip turned gray and fuzzy. Through my grown-up eyes, most of the books seem vulgar, simple or prissily didactic. It doesn't help that M is reading several grade levels ahead, and is getting flyers with pre and beginning reader books. She does not care at all if Red goes to bed, or if Spot says "It's hot!". She likes Greek myths and witches and magical tales.

We have a wonderful local children's bookstore where we can buy hardcovers of the books to keep on our shelves for reading again and again, and many local library choices (including a newly remodeled Children's Library we've yet to visit) for sampling and finding new favorites.

The best way, though, to have M read a book is to buy it and leave it lying around. I've indulged myself and bought copies (my own! to keep!) of books I borrowed over and over again from the library when I was a girl. And so she's fallen for Edward Eager's Half Magic and Eleanor Estes' Witch Family and I am so, so happy for both her and me.

But now I think I may raise the stakes for both of us. So many of the books on this blog are wonderful, but the latest entry...wow. These are books to sit with reading backward and forward. And then I looked at the rest of the catalog. Hmmmm maybe some of these for our epic-loving child?