By Tabitha Bozeman<\/p>\n
National Read a Book day 2025 came and went last weekend, and we mentioned it at home but the girls have been reading on their own so I didn\u2019t make a huge deal out of it. Well, two of the girls. Our youngest is still on the fence when it comes to reading for fun. In fact, she informed me last week that \u201cit\u2019s ok if not all of your kids love to read, Mom.\u201d I laughed and said she was right, it didn\u2019t have to be what she does all the time, but it is still an important skill to have. I didn\u2019t really think anything else of it (mostly because I know she is wrong and that she will eventually find her favorite genre).<\/p>\n
Sometimes, I think about all the time I spent reading to my children as babies and wonder if it actually did any good or made any difference. After all, they barely remember any of it. On the other hand, they also don\u2019t remember not having books around. Board books, silly books, wordless picture books, lift the flap books, puzzle books, texture books, choose your ending books, cartoon books, nature photo books, big books without pictures \u2014 the list goes on. As they have gotten older, though, it is harder to find books and series they are interested in. We try and have regular reading times where everyone grabs a book and we sit and read, sometimes with a snack, or music, on the sofa or curled up in bed. But, our youngest is still catching up in the love-of-reading department.<\/p>\n
Days like National Read a Book day are fun for me because reading is something I know I take for granted. I honestly cannot remember my life before I learned to read, and have been reading since I was three years old. However, fun, random, publicized \u201cholidays\u201d like Read a Book day give me a chance to think about reading less as a mindless function like breathing, and more as the privilege and treat that it is. It also serves as a great excuse to look up things like this \u201cReader\u2019s Bill of Rights\u201d from Daniel Pennac: 1. The right to not read 2. The right to skip pages 3. The right to not finish 4. The right to reread 5. The right to read anything 6. The right to escapism 7. The right to read anywhere 8. The right to browse 9. The right to read out loud 10. The right to not defend your tastes. As I read this, I thought about how what seems like a frivolous, just-for-fun \u201choliday\u201d can actually serve as a reminder of how blessed we are to live in a country where we can read whatever we want, whenever we want, without fear of censorship. Where we can gift our children the joy of reading, knowing it is something they will carry with them throughout their lives. Even if our 10 year olds fuss about being made to read sometimes.<\/p>\n
The other night, that same sweet, hilarious 10 year old walked into the living room and read us a story she\u2019d written. It was a fun, creepy, mysterious story with a well-developed plot and intriguing details. When she finished, her dad and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. She might fuss about being told to read, but it definitely feeding her imagination.<\/p>\n
Later, we were talking about school and life as I made dinner, and she chattered away. I was busy reading a recipe and stirring various things, thinking about who was eating what, making mental notes of chores to be done, and so on. At times like that, I sometimes have to remind myself to tune back in to her chatter, and pay attention. That night, I was really glad I did because she said \u201cMom? I\u2019m sad for kids who are never made to read. I mean, books are like movies in your head! And, you learn so much from them. You learn how to act and what to do in situations, and you learn how to solve problems \u2014 all just by reading!\u201d<\/p>\n
A minute later, she was off, skipping down the hall singing a song she\u2019d written. Reader, writer, songwriter \u2014 whatever she does with words is fine with me.<\/p>\n
Tabitha Bozeman is an instructor at GSCC. Email at tabithabozeman@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tabitha Bozeman National Read a Book day 2025 came and went last weekend, and we mentioned it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-28233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}