Books have been a big part of my life as far back as I can remember.
Growing up our family library had quite an assortment of quality books that were read and reread over and over.
The small library in our school contained more books that we loved. It was always a day of mixed emotions when the Amish schools did a book swap. We were thrilled to have new reading material, but sad to see some of our favorites go. The one year several of us plotted a way to keep our favorite book from getting traded, but that's a story for another day.
During the late fall, winter, and early spring months my parents would visit the library and bring home armloads of books for us to read, and for several years the bookmobile made a monthly stop at our house and we would all get to choose books we wanted to read.
I was a substitute teacher before LV and I got married. Since all money before we reached the age of 21 was handed to our parents, I never got to keep any of it. I guess my parents felt I deserved a little something from all that work I had done and offered that I can buy some books if I want to. I became the happy owner of the Anne of Green Gables series that year.
I used to pore over book catalogs we got in the mail and dream of how wonderful it would be to be able to have them all. The thought of being able to visit an actual bookstore was a dream I hoped would someday become true.
After LV and I got married I was happy to be surrounded by a whole lot of books I had never read before. His family had a lot of books that my family didn't read. Books by Lewis B. Miller, Grace Livingston Hill, mysteries, and the list kept going on and on. It was great and I was in book bliss.
That first year LV and I started building our family library. We found books at the local Amish stores, and then one day when we went to town we stopped at a real bookstore. It was almost overwhelming with all the options I was suddenly presented with.
We ended up buying an armload of books, among them was one by Fern Michaels. The cover was pretty, I liked her name, and the little blurb on the back sounded interesting.
That night I settled in to read it and my little book world came crashing down. It was an awful book, peppered with foul language. Even without that language the story itself was horrible, and I realized that books must be selected with care, that just because it's a book does not mean it's fit to read. It got burned, and while I was disappointed that not all books have a chance making it to our family library we never lost our love of reading, and year by year our library has kept growing with carefully selected books.
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I can imagine the shock you felt. So many of the so called 'light romances' are actually horrible, and full of sensational and trashy descriptions that we neither want nor need.
ReplyDeleteIt was a rude awakening, for sure!
DeleteOur family loves books too. When we moved from Nebraska to Washington State, the movers couldn't believe that we had so many books to move. Our children are the same. But you're right, care must be taken when choosing your books. There are some absolutely terrible ones out there.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Betsy
The worst part of having lots of books is when it's time to move. :) Otherwise I'm more of the mindset that one can never have too many books.
DeleteBoth The Squire and I love to read, and so did our children. The grandkids would have rather gone to the library than a candy store, and our eldest daughter just told me she had taken her grand-daughter to the library and checked out TEN board books, which Sweet Girl wants read to her several times a day. She was a year old in July, and obviously has "good genes".
ReplyDeleteWe have to be *very* careful when we go to book sales at the local library, because we tend to come home with shopping bags full of books, and then nothing gets done around the house for days, while we plow through all of our goodies.
That's great that your grandkids would rather go to a library than a candy store. I would make the same choice!
DeleteThis post warms my heart! I'm a librarian. My favorite books to read are children's chapter books. True that they aren't all good...but they are usually pretty safe and there are some excellent choices. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is one of my favorites. I also love all the older Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.
ReplyDeleteI still love children's books! We have most of Beverly Cleary's books. I loved them as a child, and have enjoyed reading them to our children.
DeleteI highly recommend a book called Treasurs of the Snow by Patricia St. John.
ReplyDeleteTreasures of the Snow is a great book! We have a number of books by Patricia St. John. They're all good.
DeleteMary Ann,
ReplyDeleteWhat are some of your favorite amish books? One of my very favorite is Basketful of Broken Dishes, a true story. I would like to know some that you enjoyed.
Oh.... now I'll have to look for that book. Do you know who the author is?
DeleteI'm thinking of doing a weekly blog post on the books that we love/loved.
Please do! I read one of the ones you posted about and I loved it! I don't have much time to read the books before my kids do. Sadly, I was not raised to read books although I love to read as an adult.
DeleteNaomi Stutzman
DeleteHere is my review. This is the only book I've read that brought me to tears.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A BASKETFUL OF BROKEN DISHES
By L. Shumpert on March 1, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
I had long wanted to read this book but kept putting off buying it and when a friend offered to mail her copy to me, I was very pleased and anxious to read it. I had no idea that it would pull my emotions the way it did or that I would be so wrapped up in it. Naomi's parents were Old Order Amish who left the religion and endured graciously the shunning that their family and community was bound to do....for a lifetime. This is the TRUE story of her parents, the story of how they accepted Christ as their Saviour and they were forever changed; the shunning; indeed, the author never spent a Thanksgiving or Christmas with either sides of her grandparents...and only ate at their house once as a child. She details her mothers strong faith until the very end, the hardships of having both parents so ill at the end of their lives; eventually connecting with relatives that she didn't know that she had. If you haven't read it, you will learn a lot about what a baptized person gives up to leave the amish.
She will explain the title of the book and it will make sense when you hear it. We get an entry into a closed culture, we will learn how the amish handle inheritances when one of their fold leaves. If I could give it more than five stars, I would.
Grandma used to buy books, good books and let her grandchildren borrow them. This still brings warm circles to my heart.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents did the same. There are some books I can only vaguely remember a few things that happened in them. Really wish I could remember all the titles so I could add them to our library as well.
DeleteDo you have any of the little free libraries in your area? We have some here in Charleston, SC, and I really like the idea. There's one at my son's school and one at a Methodist church in our neighborhood.
ReplyDeletehttp://littlefreelibrary.org/
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ReplyDeleteHow would that money-to-your-parents-until-age-21 thing work if you married before age 21? How uncommon would it be to do so?
ReplyDelete