For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 02, 2014

So much for reading…however, reading can be encouraged by 1) turning off the TV, and 2) taking the kids on a regular basis to your local library and let them have at it! ;)

My doctor (who was also my godfather) told my mother to put books in front of myself and my brother. It would tell my mother which one of us would be the reader. And it was me. :-) I still read more books than the average person I know. And before anyone says, that’s not true, I said “the average person I know.”

I used to have a house full of books because I read all the time. Then I got a Nook and I still read all the time I just don’t have to dust all those books and try to find a place to put them. I love to read and managed to impart the love of reading to 2 of my 3 children.

Books ? tv ?? Kids !!!!! 8^(

When I was a kid, we had a set time to go to bed. I would often be under the covers with a flashlight reading The Hardy Boys mysteries or Robert Heinlein books. Don’t read much science fiction any more but I still like mysteries and thrillers.

My father started to read to me as soon as I could sit up. He used to read the comics, and there were the Burgess bedtime stories. He also bought me the Classics Illustrated and Illustrated Junior comics (I still have most of them). Hubby and I get Scribd on our pad and I have downloaded several hundred books to date. While I have reduced my collection of “real” books over the years, but still have 4 bookcases of favourites I cannot bear to part with.

Children have to also have down time from reading like playing not too much time on TV.I envy all you who had parents to grandparents who brought you to the library to check out books. None of my grandparents lived close and none read to us grandchildren. My parents more so my mom never brought sister and I to a library not at all during summer time. My dad only started to read long after retirement and only bought Louis L’amour western books only author he care about.

When school time came I check out books. I wish I could remember titles but be and not sure Drew Berry on mystery books. My mom despised reading could never understand why anyone would waste time on reading. Now at 89 cannot do a wordsearch book. In her days as a child no real teacher to work on words. One youth made to teach said cannot say the word call wheelbarrel which was said a lot. When I gained my first pt job I bought my first books alone with new clothing as clothes was hand me down from garage sales very outdated.

When husband and I had our children I would read to them my son had his favorite books. My son as adult does not want to read but my daughter continues reading. As children I take them to library for summer reading time. My daughter said teacher was excited to find my daughter a reader.I have lots of paperback to hardback books. Found out with my new lap top and I have to wait until on-line classes are done I can check out library books or receive ebooks, so very cool. I bought books used from garage sales.

I read a cool serious from Barbara Taylor Bradford Woman of Substance the author brought the young girl to woman to life to me. I have no favorite authors. I also have Daniel Steele. My daughter is collecting Nora Roberts. I have different authors. Just cannot wait to go on trips in books.

Childhood memory: the room is dark except for one small reading lamp. While the rest of my family watches television, my mother and I are reading books. ;)

A lot of people had TV by 1964, but I didn’t live in a house containing a TV till I was twenty-nine. By then, I’d taught English for two years at a junior college and a year at Auburn University. That (not having TV) was a blessing!My parents read to me, and in grade school I discovered the Sherlock Holmes series, and later the dog stories by Albert Payson Terhune. I reread a book or two from these as a grownup, and thought that Doyle’s work was a bit elementary (sorry, Baker Street Regulars) and Terhune was a misogynistic jerk. Nice I could enjoy them at the time.Of the four grandkids, the two older ones were reading anything in their vocabularies at the age of three (and could spell like angels), the third one could at five (spelling often ROFL), and the youngest could read to some extent at six, but still has trouble sounding out longer words (spelling often indecipherable). She says she hates to read. Everyone is different!

My mother was an avid reader, picking up four or five books from the library every week. She passed that love of books on to me and I have passed it on to my son. The biggest difference between Mom’s reading and mine was that she used the library extensively, and I was more likely to buy a book. There was only one small bookshelf in her home, while I have two rooms with the walls lined with bookcases.

I loved the Bobbsey Twins as a child, Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon as a young teen and everything from Isaac Asimov to James Patterson as an adult. Science Fiction was my first love: Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Norton, Clark, etc. kept me immersed in other worlds for hours on end. Then my husband introduced me to mysteries. Christie, Queen, Conan Doyle, Patterson, Stabenow, Reichs….. I could go on and on. I got hooked on Ellery Queen, then progressed to the others. In the past few years, I have been enjoying the pet mysteries. Melanie Travis, Midnight Louie, Joe Grey (and Dulcie), Mrs. Murphy (and Tee Tucker), the Library cats and many more have all entertained me for hours on end.

I still have lots of bookshelves, but now I also have hundreds of books on my Kindle. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. They will have to pry a book out of my cold, dead hand…….

I even enjoyed “Harry Potter” – both the American and original British versions.

…And the shoemaker’s children go barefoot.

So Elly is just making stuff up for her article.

I come from a family of avid readers. The local librarian once told my mother that She had never seen a kid read so much as me. I have a houseful of books, plus my Kindle. The kindle makes it nice as when I visit someplace where there is a wait, such as the doctors, or the DMV, I always have something to read without having to tote a book.

It was the same irony as if Elly wrote an article saying “World peace can be achieved if all the children of the world got together and held hands” then John telling her that Michael and Elizabeth are punching and kicking each other, fighting like the Arabs and the Jews yet again.

Some fine journalism there. “Children MORE AND MORE are turning to books” these days…and when exactly did she write that article? Not true in 2014…Wasn’t true in 1980…nor in 1955…I’m guessing the 1920s, maybe before radio and the movies?