Children's Book Week 2014

I am hosting a week-long celebration at my other home, Saffron Tree, in honor of Children's Book Week 2014. Don't forget to add your entry to the Children's Book Giveaway!

Ninety five years since its inception in 1919, the national literacy initiative is still going strong. 

Reading is a life-changing experience. 

To discern the squiggles on a paper and extract a pattern and learn to communicate using the same coded language is a skill only humans are capable of at this level of complexity. 

World is not a mystery anymore for a reader, and thoughts are not suffocating inside with no way of expression.

From board books to touch-and-feel and squeak and pop-up books; from abecedary to wordless picture books to poignant poetry collections; from magical picture books to early readers to chapter books to graphic books and pithy young adult novels; children these days grow up with an array of choices to match their reading preferences and needs.

I still remember the thrill with which I read to my baby girl, my firstborn.

A week after registering her birth, we got a surprise package from our local library with 3 board books plus brochures and pamphlets about the benefits of early childhood literacy and the programs available at the library for fostering and nurturing it. 

The first board book of the three that I randomly chose to read to my 9-day old infant then was I Spy Little Book, rhymes by Jean Marzollo, photographs by Walter Wick. Didn't matter that she couldn't understand the words or focus on the pictures then.  

I read the same I Spy Little Book to my 9-week old - clinging to my chest crying with colic while I sounded out the now-familiar rhyming text in a soft sing-song. Didn't matter that this seemed highly ridiculous to some while strangely soothing to the mother and baby.

Nine years later, "I Spy" books are still a huge hit with my daughter; and, happily, there seems to be a never-ending supply of them.

The other two board books in the package were Goodnight Moon by Margaret Weiss Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd; and Guess how Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram. 

I was hooked!

Head over to Saffron Tree to join in this week-long celebration of children's books!