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The Greatest Gift of All by Michael Carton
As a first grade teacher and a lover of books, one of the biggest selling points when my wife (Rebecca) and I were house shopping a few years ago was the modest branch library less than two blocks from our house.
At the time, we didn’t have a child, but I couldn’t help but imagine walking our future son or daughter to the small library to check out books and attend story time.
About a year later, Rebecca gave me the greatest gift a man could ever receive – a son!
During the nine months leading up to Michael Jr.’s arrival, Rebecca and I bought a bookshelf for the little guy’s room and stocked it with some of our favorites (like Curious George, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Corduroy, Stone Soup, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, tons of Dr. Seuss books, and a whole bunch more – thanks to Border’s going out of business sale!)
By the time Michael Jr. (A.K.A. Bubba) was born in September of 2011, we had already filled the entire bookshelf (and bought a second bookshelf for the overflow). Family and friends commented that we had very few toys for our little guy, but we definitely had enough books!
For the first year and a half of his life, Rebecca and I read the books on Bubba’s shelves aloud to him, and he loved it! I even read The Little Prince to him when his uncle (who was in France at the time) sent a toy airplane from the book. Some of my favorite memories with the little guy were reading to him during those early months.
All of that reading must have instilled a love for books in Bubba because when Rebecca would get ready for work in the morning, he would sit in his crib with a stack of board books and quietly flip through them page by page.
When I would get home from work, he would run to his pile of books, pick one out, bring it back to me, sit in my lap, and wouldn’t leave until I read it to him. Once I read it, he would get up, pick out another book, and repeat the process until we read every book in the pile.
Needless to say, you would think that we couldn’t have been happier with his love of books! Well, we were… but there was a catch! All of those books that Rebecca and I bought before Bubba was born began to be read a 3rd, 4th or 5th time (or in the case of books like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we had probably read some books more than one-hundred times).
Now don’t get me wrong, I love reading to Bubba… but I was getting tired of reading the same books over and over. I thought about going out and buying some new books, but with a teacher’s salary, I didn’t have the money to keep buying books (especially while we were still buying diapers)!
Somewhere along the way, our busy lives as teachers and parents made us think we didn’t have time to walk Bubba over to the small library that we were so excited about when we bought our house. It’s hard to believe, but the thought of taking Bubba to the library a couple times each week began to fade. It was almost embarrassing that we weren’t using the library more, so I decided to do something about it.
I came up with a plan and decided that Bubba and I were going to try to read every picture book in our library – a journey that I’m figuring will take at least a couple years to complete.
To make things easier on me, I decided that we’d pull books in alphabetical order (by authors’ last names) and “read the library” one shelf at a time. Our blog (http://michaelsreadthelibrary.wordpress.com) tries to capture this journey and will help us remember some of the many things we learn throughout the experience.
I hope that by writing about our experiences, we can inspire other parents and grandparents to enjoy the gift of reading with a child and to take full advantage of their local libraries.
Michael Carton is a first grade teacher, husband, father, and “Big.” In his spare time, he serves as President-Elect for the Blackhawk Reading Council, coaches a FIRST LEGO League team, moderates #EdBookTalk on Twitter, and volunteers for WQPT-PBS, 4-H, Adopt-A-Highway, and more. In his free time, does yard work, enjoys his wife’s delicious baking, and reads. He blogs at http://michaelsreadthelibrary.wordpress.com
Nerdy Book Club 
No wonder you found yourself trying to carve out time! If you can still fit in the reading with all the many other things you do, how can others have an excuse? Thanks for sharing all of your ideas. Your son is very blessed! (and read him some Sandra Boynton books for me, will you?)
Reading the same book over and over requires a unique form of patience from a parent, but they do have their favorites in those early years. I tried to grasp it from their perspective, but the only thing I could come up with was that they had a simple delight in the fact that the book stayed the same. Years later with my grandson, I realized it was that sameness that was the delight for him because with each reading he discovered more than he had gotten before, words that began to be recognized, actions that got connected to results. I think his delight was not that the book was the same, but that he changed a little bit with each reading.
The fun never stops, it just gets more interesting as they grow. The next generation, when those readers give us readers of their own is pure joy.
I remember having Chicka Chicka Boom Boom memorized from all the repeated readings with my son! Good luck with your endeavor to read all the picture books at your library!
I too benefitted from Borders going out of business sale. Stacked up on many YA titles.
You have brought back fond memories of my first daughter and the stacks of books that we read when she was just a baby. She is now 10 years old, and we still read together -she doesn’t like reading aloud, but she loves reading a middle grade novel and then talking in-depth about the book. Today, we talked about Turtle in Paradise.
I have three other children and we read every night. The two little ones love the same books and my son is loving all of the Matt Christopher novels. My friends always comment about how lucky I am to have readers. They have no idea that there was no luck involved.:)
I always tell my students that the library is my favorite place to go! Sadly it has been awhile since I have been. I am trying really hard to read all the unread books I have at home. I do take full advantage of my school library though!
Thanks for sharing your story, I enjoyed it!
I love the idea of reading the library, one shelf at a time. I basically did that (for chapter books) in my elementary school library. To this day I can take a mental walk through that library, remembering which books were on each shelf (despite the fact that I have overall a terrible memory).
This is a very dear post. I loved library trips and re-reads with my boys. 28 years later my husband and I still proudly quote the Dr. Suess Alphabet Book:
“Aunt Annies Alligators…A A A”
Such great memories!!