Bookworms

I love to read. Okay, I am pretty much addicted to books and fortunately, my girls love books too. Of course, with my influence they probably didn't have much of a choice, but I don't feel bad, reading is a good thing.

I recently, volunteered to work at the Book Fair at the girls' school. Of course, that just gave me hours and hours of opportunity to peruse all the books and basically sucker me into buying a bunch. I justify it in two ways: it's good for the girls brains and it benefits their school. Here are some of the books I bought:
Another fun thing that Ashley and I are doing is reading all the Caudill Award nominees. Each year 20 b0oks are nominated for the Caudill Award, which is an Illinois award for outstanding literature for young readers, about 4-8 grade level. Ashley and I started the tradition of reading nominees last year and have really come across some great books. Some books you would expect such as The Lightning Thief, Fablehaven, and this year The Hunger Games, but I have also been surprised by some real gems that I would not have known about otherwise. Let me make a plug for Wednesday Wars, Someone Named Eva, and Elephant Run.

Anyways, Ashley and I have had a lot of fun reading the same books. Sometimes we have to make decisions about who is going to get to read a certain book first. Ashley has also had to learn not to give away spoilers if I haven't read a book yet. Otherwise, we have fun talking about the books and seeing who can get the books we want from the library first--Ashley from her school library and me from the public library. I love it when she runs in the house after to school excited to tell me she has a book that we have had a hard time getting.

Ashley has also been motivated to read because her teacher has a reading incentive program in which the kids can earn enough reading points to throw pies in the teacher's face at the end of the year. Ashley has already earned 2 pies.

Now we also have another reader in the house. She doesn't read the Caudill books yet but she will before long. Paige is constantly reading to herself and to anyone who will listen. She also love us to read to her. At school she has been placed in an accelerated reading program. Each week she reads assigned books and takes tests on them. Here she is with a few of her reading awards:

Good job Paige!