Bookshelves hold books, which is good.

We keep getting new books (or used books that are new to us), which is also good.

Books hold memories. This can be good, or heartbreaking, depending on how much space you have to keep books around.

Bookshelves offer an finite amount of space. That is the problem with bookshelves.

Here are some memories that are in, or around, books.

When you are reading to your infant and they, in return, are drooling, or spitting up on you, or on the book, or they are wanting to nurse, or they are falling asleep, or you are falling asleep and feeling a little foolish, because the book at this point is simply a tattered backdrop, or a way for you to see pictures of adorable and smiling children, when you are sleep deprived and thinking children might not be so adorable;

The first times your child interacts with a book. In Good Night Gorilla, placing their pudgy little finger over the red balloon that is floating away, higher and higher, on every page, and you realize, they are listening now.

The first time your child begins howling because things are not as they are supposed to be, as you forgot to point to the sea monster and say “sea monster” in Where the Wild Things Are, like you do every night.

The first time your child requests you read a book again, then again, then again, then asks you to read it every night for a week, then for weeks — like Crossing in our family, the loveliest book I know about trains – then all of a sudden, one night, your child wants you to read them a different book, and you find out you miss Crossing, that you don’t want this phase to end, and can things please stay the same for a little longer.  “Don’t you want to hear Crossing again?” you ask, and your child says no they do not.

The first time your child reads to you. (I wish I can say it happened to me with a magical book like Goodnight Moon, but really it happened with a pretty cool educational book my mom found for us, Magic Letters, which doesn’t have a great plot or anything, but it does work)

The first time your child reads silently to themselves, and you can’t believe it, and you find yourself quizzing them — “so why doesn’t Frog want to wear his funny bathing suit?”– and your child, of course, answers correctly, Frog doesn’t have a funny bathing suit, Toad has the bathing suit, and they now occupy a private world of reading without you.

The first time your child decides they want to read by themselves instead of you reading to them. “Okay,” you say, a little lost, then you climb into bed with them and ask, “Well, can I still read next to you?” And they move aside to make room for you.

The first time you and your child get to read the same book at the same time, like Alice in Wonderland, and you get to ask your child, “Wasn’t that amazing, when Alice falls down the rabbit hole, and then goes into that hallway with all the doors, and the one small locked door that leads to the garden, and she has to eat the little cake” — this is imagery stuck in the center of your heart — and your child nods, a look of wonder on their face too.

The first time your older child reads to your youngest, the two of them piled in the big green glider where you have sat with them every night for many years, and you get to stand in the hallway, out of sight, listening.

Tags:
• reading aloud,
• alice in wonderland,
• books,
• crossing,
• where the wild things are