Hello bookworm friends! I made an exciting book discovery this morning!

I just love it when that happens! Often it is a book that I have long forgotten about, perhaps one I used to read to the children when they were inky-winky munchkins - or it could be an old book of mine that I forgot I still had and was excited to get to read again.

Now that my children are older, however, they will every now and then have a book in their own collections that I don’t know about. When they were little, I knew every single book of theirs, often by heart. I spent countless hours cleaning up and reorganizing their book shelves, as well as reading to them. You will often come into this house nowadays, however, and find all five of us with our noses in our own books.

What also comes into play here is the Annual Richardson Independent School District book fair at Valley View Mall. Every year, thousands upon thousands of books are sold and the proceeds pay for scholarships for a handful of lucky seniors, and also teachers. Let me tell you, the Roberson crowd eats this UP! We will go and all meander about, looking and looking and looking at the unbelievable amount of books. A few times, we have been lucky to catch the ‘bag sale’ - $10 for all the books you can stuff into a paper grocery bag! Yeehaaawww!! And well, when that happens, I just don’t get to see all that the children come home with. (I started that sentence with ‘and’ and ended it with a preposition! I hope there are no grammar police hiding behind any of these billboards! eek!) Anyway, we all come home with our own bags and find a spot on the floor somewhere to dump our loot and paw all over our new treasures!

I try to go around and see all of the books the children have come home with, as, after all, children’s books are one of my biggest weaknesses, but, I just miss some of them in all the hullaballoo.

Eventually we find some place to put our beloved stockpiles, and then we go on about our business.

Fast forward to August, we have moved to Alabama, we don’t have as much storage space in this house, so we are still living with boxes. Fun. I am going from room to room trying to get my little creatures out of their beds to get ready for school. Lined up in the hallway are some boxes whose contents have already been pillaged, so their lids are askew. I happen to lean over one and take a peak, and I see some of the boys’ books. I delve a bit further, seeing books I am already quite familiar with, until….there it is….

A really cool book that I am sure I’ve never laid eyes upon! “Whose is this? Where’d this come from? This is so cool!”

“Huh, Mom? Wha?,” sleepy voices murmur.

“This book! Whose is it?” Silence. I swipe it and off I go to my desk to sit and wonder at this great book whose acquaintance I’ve until now been deprived of.
The book is called, The Kingfisher Treasury of Giant and Monster Stories, chosen by Jane Olliver and illustrated by Annabel Spenceley. There are fourteen stories, some of which are familiar, and the rest which are not so everyday. The illustrations are black and white and very whimsical and sort of have the text wrapped around them in some places…which I think adds to their whimsy.

It is just all in all a really neat book. And was such a lovely treasure to start my day with this morning.

My daughter eventually came into the kitchen and told me that it was my son’s and he got it from the RISD book fair and I realized, “oh, ok, that makes sense” as so many of those books get missed by my prying-mother-bookworm eyes.

If you are in the Dallas area in February, you really should check out the RISD bookfair - it is quite a treasure itself! People come from all over the country to shop for books each year. Remember - Valley View Mall, you could just keep an eye out for it on the RISD website: www.risd.org

I was also so excited that with this post, I could finally use one of my Amazon links I’ve yet to use. And then I discovered the link for this wonderful book has no graphic with it! What? The cover is great, too - that’s nuts!

Well, here it is:

GO READ A BOOK!

I just read about a really neat way to teach children about differences and similarities on a great blog by two moms.

The blog is called Rookie Moms and you can find the post with the cool idea here.

It is a all about a good way to show little ones that things that are the same can be different. And, I suppose, that things that are different - can be the same.

I’m going to have to call my sister-in-law and have her do this with my nephew because it is such a neat idea.

GO READ A BOOK!

Howdy bookworm friends! I hope is all is well in the lives of my book-loving and child-loving friends!

This morning I ran across a post by a very sweet life and business coach named Kammie that really caught my attention. She was discussing, and had discussed with some other bloggers, the question of revealing one’s personal self in one’s business blog.

When I started this blog, I pondered that myself. I thought, “I had really better keep this impersonal - just great resources for parents, etc.”, but, as I blogged, I realized how untrue to myself that really was. I have never been one to “hold back” my real self - from anyone. It’s true - I make friends all over the place - buying gas, at the grocery store. In fact, just the other day, I had quite a long talk with an older gentleman in the parking lot of the grocery store! I was packing my groceries into the car, he was just getting there and a simple hello and chat about the weather turned into an entire conversation!

And that is just me - that is the REAL Mrs. Lisa. True - I’ve slowed family members down, befriending people as we go along, but, that is my true nature and just cannot be denied.

And so, likewise, shall it spill into my business and my business blog. I believe I would really enjoy knowing the person who was sending my child monthly letters - having written conversations with my child. I think it would make the whole experience that much more enjoyable.

And so I hope it is for you, because my personality refuses to stop spilling over into all areas of my life, including my business.

And I told Kammie that was how I felt in my comment on her post, as well. You can read her post at her blog: Passion Meets Purpose.

And then of course…

GO READ A BOOK!

Oh dear readers, and mommies and daddies and child caretakers of the world, I found the coolest resource yesterday while wandering the web!

I was actually checking my search engine rankings and stumbled on a fantabulous online resource for helping youngsters learn to read and learn to love to read!

It is geared specifically towards first graders, but, also can be used for pre-readers, preschoolers, and children a bit older, as well.

And I have to say, I had some fun there myself! Shhh! Don’t tell my kids - they are a little older and would make terrible fun of me! Oh, I forgot - one did catch me - my almost thirteen year old, and he was full of the giggles! And was definitely teasing me, however, he then proceeded to watch the entire alphabet song with me! Hmmm….I’d say that would give the mother of a middle school monster child some ammo, wouldn’t you? *cackle, cackle!!*

Ok, back to this terrific site! It has activities for four different levels of readers/pre-readers including printables, online activities, and online ‘talking’ books that are actually quite nice - I might have read a few myself. Hee-hee

The site is run by Dr. Schutz, who has a PhD in physics and is a successful publisher and artist. As a child, he struggled with reading and was consistently toward the bottom of his class. He wanted to make a place on the internet where kids who struggle like he once did would have a free resource to help them out.

They do sell products, which is not a surprise, as most sites these days do, however, I went to check on them expecting them to be the real hook and sinker of the whole thing and guess what? They are not. They are very good and helpful products at extremely reasonable prices! What a lovely surprise!

I believe I could banter on all evening about this site, and my children seem to be a little hungry for dinner (the nerve!), so I’d better just give you the link and get on with dinner!

The site is called Starfall.com

Go visit today - I know I’m going to get all my precious nieces and my darling nephew there!

GO READ A BOOK!

I bet your kids read and brush every night, just like mine! We make sure that they do both because they are both so important.

And if you would like to keep a log of your children’s brushing habits and their nightly reading, you can earn your child a free electric toothbrush!

This is such a cool deal - I found it through one of my freebie sites and I have been logging my children’s reading and brushing nightly for over a week now!

Reading is Fundamental has teamed up with Colgate and the makers of Sponge Bob to provide a great program for your kiddos. You just log their nightly brushing and reading activities and the children earn points. The points then give you access to printable activities, online activities, and when you get enough points…a toothbrush!

Cool deal - a free toothbrush for doing what we already do!

Ok, here is the link to get your child signed up!

http://www.colgatehealthyhabits.com

GO READ A BOOK!

Well, we are all moved to Alabama now. We ran into one snag after another - we did actually make it to Alabama, but, we just couldn’t move into our house for several weeks.

Now we are finally in our house, and the kids are finally back in school, so I can get some work done around here! They actually started school quite early this year, but, it turns out to be good for them as they can meet more kiddos that way and good for me so that I can get this house put together!

I have one more box of books to set free! My books are not, however, organized - yet. I will get to that - and I can’t wait! I love to have them organized just how I like them - in their own little sections! Self-help, angels, horses, etc.

I don’t even have my kitchen or my bedroom or even my bathroom all the way unpacked, but, it just feels so GOOD to unpack my books. It is almost insanely comforting - like a ‘woobie-on-a-shelf’! Yes, that’s silly - but so VERY TRUE!

GO READ A BOOK!