New members of the library

Kabouter is a good reader, but he doesn't seem to pick up the love for books that I had as a child.  On the other hand he shares Jan's passion for comic strips, so he reads that quite regularly.  Nevertheless, they are quite encouraged at school in all kind of fun ways to read regularly  : in the fall there was a reading bingo in which we had to take pictures of reading at lots of fun places or in weird positions and in March there was a big "Masked reader" contest at school. 

Anyway, he had received a lot of books around Christmas that were left untouched and with the prolonged Easter vacation his homework was to read every day 10 minutes. I negotiated with him to read 10pages in a non comic book each day.  So he picked up one of the Christmas present books before bedtime...and finished it within 24 hours.  (twice half an hour before bedtime I believe). He really does read smoothly. 

So I talked to him about reading more different books and finding the books you love, with thrilling stories or fun characters or ... I talked about the library and he seemed to pick up that idea right away.  Right away he asked a couple of times when I'd find time to go to the library.  So last week I took both boys in the 2 hours I didn't have meetings and walked them downtown to the main library.   I had to renew my membership that had been ignored in more than 10 years. Hmm the arrival of an ipad in my posession around 2011 on which I put some digital books ...that were competing with social media on it and then later on becoming a mother, has killed my reading rhythm dramatically. Last years I am improving again (if you come from zero, any book is improvement :p), but mostly on vacation.  Right now I try to re-integrate reading more regularly in my life again. So I got a new membership and I had the boys join the library as well. They were very excited. 

We had to search a bit in the kid's collection and they had to learn to search for books on all those backs that are on the shelves.  Actually I found the children's corner so boring...the main library in Leuven is in a nice architectural building from the famous architect Van De Velde but it feels very sterile. I am used to attend the library of Deinze with carpets and soft benches and toys corners and warm colors and massive bears etc laying around so it's a fun play area as well. Nothing of that here. pff boring for them.  

Anyway, after stimulating the children in their search and not give up after 2 minutes of "I don't find anything", I got to carry a heavy backpack of a total of 13 books for the 3 of us.   And now we have a lot of vacation time to read and discover.  

Well, actually we are in the Ardennes and the boys forgot to bring all but one book, so they won't do too much reading, but I brought mine, so I'll have my page turning breaks.  I do feel the pressure of progressing well though with the return deadline in my mind.  Haven't had a deadline for over a decade, so that's less fun. But hey, we'll see how I progress. I can extend of course.  Or not.  Let's not put pressure on a fun activity.