I spend my days working in the children's department of a bookstore. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? I get to spend my days surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of books. Must be a booklover's dream come true, right?
Working in a bookstore has its perks (not the least of which is the discount) but it does have its disadvantages. Besides the usual terrors that accompany any retail job, I found myself facing an unexpected problem. After being surrounded by so many books for so long, I've become a little immune to their charms. They no longer catch my eye like they used to, demanding me to read them.
My first two years as a bookseller saw my book consumption levels skyrocket. I counted nearly 30 read in one year, which was very ridiculous for me. Since then, I've probably read ten, fifteen at the most...over a three year period. It's absolutely horrible and I feel very ashamed of myself. I really need to get back into reading on a regular basis. I need to start doing a lot of things on a regular basis.
Anyway, one of the perks to working in the children's department is that I get to see books that I might not have seen otherwise. Out of those ten/fifteen books, a fair number of them were young readers titles. And no, I'm not talking about Harry Potter, though of course I have read those, too. It's become fashionable/acceptable for adults to read young adult (otherwise known as teen) titles, but very few will admit that they still read children's books. But I love them.
But it's not just young readers titles. Since I've started to do storytime twice a week, I've also been looking at a lot of picture books. I've even bought a few of them for my own collection. My favorites are the girly ones with the pretty illustrations, but I also love the funny ones, the ones that are a great to read out loud.
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