She Loves Books

Our granddaughter, Jordan, started first grade yesterday. She’s pictured above at home on the first day of school. Toward the end of kindergarten last year, she unlocked the puzzle—she learned to read. This year she’ll build on what she started last spring.

A large basket in her bedroom holds dozens of books. Her parents have read to her since she was an infant, and when I’m there, or her other grandmother visits, we have read to her, too. Reading and books have been a part of this child’s life right from the very beginning. Because of that, I feel fairly certain that books will always be important to Jordan.

I hope she’ll learn that a book can be informative, comforting, and entertaining, and through a book she can travel all over the world, meet children of other cultures, learn history, science, and more.

Her mother introduced her to the public library at an early age, and Jordan enjoys her trips to pick out new books to borrow. When she attended the Open House at her school before kindergarten started last year, it was the library that drew her interest. She stood outside in the hallway and peered through the windows at the hundreds of books. This was the place she wanted to be as soon as possible.

Makes me wonder if loving books is genetic! What would a scientist say--heredity or environment? Like most things, it’s probably a bit of both. And it doesn’t hurt if a child’s family promotes reading and books from the time they are infants.