Let's Celebrate Piles of Picture Books!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

*                  *                   *

This week I'm celebrating piles of picture books!

*throws confetti*

Over the summer, I downloaded Feedly and Pocket so I could better keep up with my favorite blogs and make a better attempt at commenting on blog posts. It's clear that there are times when I barely keep up with writing here and so making the time to comment on blogs is difficult. But I do so love reading friends' blogs and keeping up with their thoughts and ideas.

The good thing about Feedly and Pocket is that the help keep me organized and any blog posts I send to Pocket are there waiting for me when I'm ready. This post isn't about celebrating piles of blog posts though, it's about piles of picture books. One of the posts I happened to add to my Pocket was a blog post titled Teaching a Love of Picture Books by Katherine Sokolowski shared at Nerdy Book Club on August 8th. I'm so glad I saved it to my Pocket because it was definitely worth revisiting.

Katherine talks about some of my favorite books like I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown. And while her mention of these books reminds me of the stories within the pages of those books, it also brings to mind so many memories of conversations with friends about these books. She talks about falling in love with picture books and how they have a special place in her heart. I wholeheartedly agree. Books are so much more special when they are shared. And when we share books, we create memories that fill our hearts.

Last week, Peanut and I emptied a bookshelf that was in my room and moved it into his room. We slid the bunk beds over to make room for it and then carefully re-organized the books as we transferred from my room to their new home. We weeded out books to donate and determined that the top shelf would be reserved for our favorites. As I handed him books, he decided where they belonged, declaring the top-shelf favorites as "Hall of Fame" books. Standing back to admire our work, it was neat to see how our collection of books has evolved. The middle shelf, where we used to keep all the board books, now holds chapter books and graphic novels. I scanned the Hall of Fame books and smiled to see favorites and remembered all the times we shared them as a family. Yup, the best way to teach a love of picture books is to share them and build memories around them. 

Katherine shared a pile of picture books in her Nerdy Book Club post, unsure which book she would share first with her class. Isn't that a great problem to have? A pile of picture books just waiting to be read, memories waiting to be shared. Definitely something to celebrate!

What are you celebrating this week?