World Book Day is looming like a giant black cloud over the parents’ picnic of organisational doom. And while I’ll never be overjoyed by yet another random fancy dress commandment message from school in my inbox, World Book Day is the one I am willing to embrace – for what it represents.
I am a bookworm. I collect books like others collect shoes, covet the latest titles, emit sighs of ‘ooh’ outside bookshop window displays. I have hundreds of books in the attic and garage – one day I hope to have a house big enough for multiple floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with the things. I am the opposite of my sister, though we’re just two years apart, she probably wouldn’t be sad if she never read a book again.
So in the same way my husband – a dedicated rugby fanatic and former county youth player – yearns for our boys to take up his mantle and play the gentlemen’s game, I internalise my hopes that they (or at least one of them) will share my love for the printed word.
My eldest started school this year and watching him learn to read has been a thing of wonder – and of witchcraft. I’ve watched friends struggle to cajole and coax their children to do their reading homework and while we do have afternoons like that with my son – normally when a particularly gripping episode of Paw Patrol is on – he does seem to enjoy consuming the pages which lie between the bound covers.
This week I’ll sit proudly in his celebration assembly as he receives his next level reading ribbon – one of only 5 in his class to do so. And as I applaud and beam, I’ll also be hoping he forever remembers this moment, and associates his future love of reading with it. For I’m happy to accommodate all the fart jokes and smack-down wrestle sessions in the world if he also embraces his inner bookworm.
Like this? You can read Sophie’s brilliant blog Retro Parenting: The Library and for the latest from our writers, head to The Motherload® homepage
About Sophie Law
Sophie is a thirty-something mum of two, a big eater of food and drinker of wine (of which her favourites are Kung Fu Girl Riesling and Chateau Musar, in case you were going to buy her a bottle for… you know… just being fabulous.
She lives 2 disappointing miles short of the Cotswolds with her husband and boys in a chaotic house of farts, fun and love.
When she’s not arsing around with writing, she is a radio presenter, producer and journalist and also a jobbing voiceover artist.
You can follow her on Twitter or on her kids’ food blog and general food blog
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