It’s a snowy Sunday afternoon and my office is full of chores. There are January circulation stats to add to a spreadsheet, lesson plans to be written, a couple flannel board characters I brought home because they need some hot glue love, a tote full of picture books to peruse, district mandated videos about Epipen use and OSHA requirements for storing book cleaning solvents to watch, and… oh yea, three unsorted baskets of laundry sitting on the floor slowly wrinkling while I try to ignore them. Sometimes in the midst of the frenzy of everyday life it is easy to forget why I took my first library class many moons ago. I like to read and I wanted to share that passion with others.
I find myself surrounded by informational texts… cookbooks, a guide to hiking the Buckeye Trail, religious treatises, teaching pedagogy, seed catalogs, a dog training manual. Separate from all that, over in the corner, under the third stack of picture books sits the escape hatch. Waiting for me is a beautiful, grown up, historical fiction novel. It has been months since I read just for me. Don’t get me wrong I am passionate about picture books. I genuinely enjoy the middle grade fiction I read to share with colleagues for their students. I actively choose the YA novels I read in order to be able to make informed recommendations to the teens in my life. None of it is the same as reading for pure pleasure.
If we wish to make readers of our students, we have to walk to talk. How many times have I said, “I think you just haven’t found the right book for you yet” and lead a reluctant student to the shelves? If I do it for others, sometimes I have to do it for me. So if you are looking for me the rest of this afternoon, check the corner of the couch between the dog and the coffee cup. I’ll be hanging out at the Battle of Little Bighorn with 300 pages of glorious me time.