Bluebird Books

hours spent at the library Summer has always felt like the best time to tackle big books that I've been meaning to read. Long stretches of empty time spread like a blanket before me while I lounge at the pool or beach. Lazy afternoons with nothing to do until dinner lend themselves well to books with high page counts. I've taken on War and Peace, East of Eden, and The Goldfinch in the hottest months of the year. This summer may be record-breaking for page counts for me. I've started four books that are over 400 pages and I'm moving (slow but steady) through two 700+ page novels.  I love getting completely lost in the disparate worlds of each of these books but at the same time, I'm fretting over my monthly reading totals which will surely drop thanks to all of these bricks I'm reading.  I get annoyed with long chapters or solid pages of text, where dense paragraphs seem to roll on endlessly, or at least onto the next page. These things slow me down and I do not

This is my 16th summer as a mother. In that time I’ve tried all kinds of ways to keep my kids reading through the hottest months of the year: library programs with their disappointing prizes (one year, our library gave out 1 raffle entry/book read, the prize was a bike but they didn’t announce the winner until September…try explaining that to an eight-year-old), homemade reading charts (thanks, Pinterest), and plain, old-fashioned begging.   Last year our reading plan was pretty successful. Most days the kids read for an hour but it was almost always a painful hour. I made book baskets for each kid based on what I thought they should read and the lists of summer reading ideas from their teachers. If they completed the books in their basket they would get $50. I have learned that my children are best motivated by cold, hard cash—they take after their mom and dad, I guess. As summer approached this year, I reflected on last year, what worked and what didn’t. Yes, all four kids read all o