Kids should devour books. That was my goal as a teacher and it's been my goal as a parent. I want my kids to lose themselves in books. I want them to race with Amy and Dan Cahill across the world looking for clues. I want them to thrill with Harry Potter as he steps into Diagon Alley for the first time. I want them to fret with Henry when Mudge is lost and I want their mouths to water as they wait with Pa for the magical pie in Sweet Dream Pie.
To that end, I started reading to my children when they were infants. And I mean infants -- not-able-to-hold-their-heads-up-by-themselves-still-struggling-to-focus babies. I actually read to my oldest in the womb, but I think that might have been carrying things a bit far.
That was the easy part. Now they're 8, 6 and 3 and I'm coping with different issues -- how to find books for my 8 year old that are appropriate for her? How to find books to motivate my 6 year old to read on his own? And how to get my 3 year old to read something other than Dora the Explorer books? At the same time, I look for books my older nieces and nephews will read and enjoy, and that keeps me very aware of what my kids are going to encounter as they navigate the grades.
In the end, this is what sparked Bookivore: it marries my love of books with my search for quality, appropriate lit for my kids. I'm not striving to be the first out there with a review -- many of the books you'll find on here are readily available at public libraries and even second hand stores. While I wish I had a money tree in the back yard so I could buy all the books I want, I have to get mine in more fiscally responsible ways. We buy cheap, we borrow, we use our library religiously. Sometimes we splurge. What you'll find here are the books that I love, that I have found useful or motivating for my own children, that I think have some awesome quality or feature that makes them worth reading.
May you find something here that makes you want to pick up a book and read.
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