The Pagemaster & I

“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.” 
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!


One thing i'll say about Seuss, he sure knows how to get your imagination going. I want my son's imagination to know no bounds and for me books were always the way to unlock this. Who  else can motivate you like Dr. Seuss? In beginning the journey of sparking the love of reading in my son, we have been devouring all things Seuss. And well, pretty much all things classic children's books. Yes, I know he's only two months old, but to me it is never to early to start! With getting his first imagination library book in the mail this week, we've had books on the brain big time. So we took our first trip to the library yesterday to introduce Chase properly to the world of books!

Now I have to briefly explain that one of my clearest early childhood memories was of going to the library on a field trip in 1st grade. Not the library in the school, but to the HUGE public library in Virginia Beach (where i'm from) where thousands of books and floors of possibilities first captured my heart. I remember walking in to the first floor lobby with all my other classmates and not being able to move. My seven year old body was trembling with awe and excitement and all I can remember thinking to myself was "I'll NEVER be able to read all these books." I knew right away that this was the place for me.

It didn't matter that my family wasn't like every one else's, that my Mom and Dad were divorced and I grieved daily for the memory of my parents as one household. It didn't matter anymore that I was new in school and didn't feel like I fit in. I knew in those thousands of pages lay my true identity, my true friends and my old familiar feeling of home that spread through me like a seeping warmth every time I opened the cover of a book. Books were my friends, always had been. When I felt like I couldn't handle what was going on in life I'd open the cover of a book and escape to a new place, meet new people and learn new things. I'd devour every scrap of knowledge that I could. I wanted to fly away on Aladdin's carpet, hide in the Secret Garden, play in Tarabitha, have super brain powers like Matilda or crawl inside a giant peach and rope seagulls into flying me to New York like James did. I wanted to meet Pip and Edmund and Hamlet and Macbeth. I just wanted to go everywhere and do everything that I couldn't at seven.

So that being said, you may see why reading is something i'm so passionate about. I will do everything in my power to make sure Chase has every ounce of stability that I lacked at times. I know in my heart that my husband is a fantastic father and provider. I know I will try my best to do alot of things differently to suit what I think a child needs. But I do want my son to share my love of reading. I want to instill in him the joy of a new book, of reading another persons story whether real or fictional and weeping with their troubles, rejoicing in their triumphs and loving them in the end as a friend.

I cannot wait to see Chase get older and how he will react to the books we read together. I cant wait until he's older and I can see how he reacts to the library's vastness and all the possibilities that it holds for a child with an unrestrained imagination. We will be there as often as I can take us there, we will be there for all the story times we can fit in, and we will take this magical journey together. I cannot wait!