About Reading

February. Although it can be a month when a person starts to feel a little stir crazy regarding the winter situation, it’s also “I Love to Read Month,” my favorite kind of month other than April, “National Poetry Month.”  I always loved all the silent reading we got to do in school during the month of February.

As my husband often reminds me, it’s pretty much my own fault that my children would rather shirk any kind of activity, espcecially something I’ve ordered them to do, in favor of reading a book.  It’s pretty much all my fault that they get almost a little violent when someone interrupts their reading.  It’s my fault they sigh and scowl and stomp and sometimes through a medium sized temper tantrum about not being able to continue reading when they are in the middle of the story.

It’s a little bit the fault of my husband too, but it is especially my fault.

It’s my fault because I am NOTORIOUS for plowing through a book when I start it.  In fact,  in recent years I only let myself start a book after everyone else is in bed for the night, because I will literally not stop to even go to the bathroom for three to six hours until I’m done with the book.  Don’t get in the way of my story.  I can’t read during the day because I forget to do things like feed my children, and I get a bit grumpy when people try to talk to me and I’m thinking about what is going to happen next in the story.  It’s best just to finish the story all at once.

Last night there was a snowstorm.  My husband is basking in a tropical climate and swimming in the Pacific Ocean during his off hours of a conference, and I knew there was going to be some heavy duty shoveling waiting me today.  The snow was beautiful, though, and everything was cancelled, and how could I not just curl up with a book after I sent everyone to bed.  I needed a little entertainment in my life.

So I walked over to my “to read” shelf, and randomly plucked a book.  It was The Hunger Games.  Dr. Peds read this trilogy a few months ago, and so did Dot.  I’ve been reading some other things, but it seemed like a fast, quick read and a good one for a snowstorm.  So I read the whole book.  It was one in the morning when I finished, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, so I plucked the second book off the shelf and took it up to bed, thinking, I’ll just read a little bit more and since I’m in my bed I’ll fall asleep.  It turns out that I read the whole second book and finished it right as the alarm clock was ringing to get the kidlets up for school.  I went downstairs to check the news, and sure enough, SNOW DAY!  Before going back upstairs to go to sleep, I grabbed the third book.  Eventually everyone got up and I told them they could watch a little movie on the computer (don’t interrupt my book!  I’ll even resort to television to keep the masses at bay!)  One third through the last book I did finally fall asleep and took a 45 minute nap.  By then the movie was done and I knew I had to get up out of bed and start shoveling.  Torture!  Not just the shoveling, but shoveling when I could be reading!  In bits and pieces I sneaked a chapter here and a chapter there with only a little bit of frustration throughout the day.  When several piano students cancelled their  lessons in the afternoon, I sat down with my book and shooed everyone to a different room (survival of the fittest!)  I even read while the babysitter was here and I had an open lesson slot (usually I try to do something productive when that happens since I’m paying for a babysitter, and everything.

Finally, tonight I fed everyone and told them to do their own silent reading and finished the last of the final book.  And now I’m going to shirk my planned work for some heavy duty sleeping.

For the record, I liked the Hunger Games trilogy.  Were they the best books I’ve ever read?  No.  But I can definitely see their appeal, and I found them very entertaining, obviously.  My favorite was the first.  I also liked the second, and the third had some important things to show readers, I thought.