May 7th to May 13th is Children’s Book Week, the national celebration of reading for youth. Better World Books sent me the info in an email and I couldn’t pass up the chance to blog about something I’ve loved my whole life – BOOKS!

I’m guessing that from the minute a book was first put into my hands, I fell in love with reading. My Mom was an early elementary school teacher and we had piles of books in every room of the house. I read constantly, everything I could get my hands on. I think it also helped that both of my parents were readers, we had the newspaper every day and they both read it, and starting in about the second grade, so did I!

It’s probably no surprise then that there are books in every room of my house as an adult, too. Chris and I both read every day, usually right before bed. We read to all three of our kids as soon as they could sit up, made sure books were on low shelves or in baskets within easy reach, started them with wordless books, then picture books, then early readers. All three have strong reading skills and test higher than grade level 

These are some of my favorite children’s book authors:

Dr. Seuss (who also published as Theo Lesig)

Maurice Sendak (who passed away today at age 84, he was a great talent)

Beatrix Potter

Jan and Stan Berenstain

Mercer Mayer

Raymond Briggs (you must read “The Snowman” if you haven’t already)

William Steig

Robert McCloskey

Bill Martin Jr. (he writes the books that Eric Carle illustrates, and also Chicka Chicka Boom Boom)

Steven Kellogg

Karla Kuskin

H.A. Rey (the Curious George books!)

Marc Brown

Margaret Wise Brown

And so many more! Children’s Book Week, administered by Every Child A Reader and sponsored by the Children’s Book Council, honors the life-changing potential of a book, especially during a young person’s formative years.

Here are a few ways to celebrate for Children’s Book Week (and all year long!):

• Buy a book from BetterWorldBooks.com. With every book purchased, they donate a book to someone who needs it. The vast majority of donations goes to Books for Africa and Feed the Children.

• Pick out one of your (or one of your parents’) favorite books from childhood and introduce it to your kid at bedtime.

• Spend some time at your local library. Even a few minutes here and there in our busy schedule will help instill a lifelong love of books.

• Pen your own children’s book to read to your kids. Have them also write their own to read to you, too!

• Pick out 5 books, either from your own collection or from a book store, to donate to literacy campaigns throughout the world (Better World Books is a great example of one such outlet.)

And, Better World Books is reducing the price on a huge selection of used children’s books. Shop their Children’s Book Week sale selection at BetterWorldBooks.com and get 3 used books for $9, and any additional used books for $3 each!

I’d love to have you share in a comment what your favorite children’s books are, either ones you read as a child or ones your children read now!  Happy Children’s Book Week!

Related articles

• My New Favorite Holiday: Children’s Book Week!(susanheim.blogspot.com)

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• Children’s Book Week – Share Your Favorite Children’s Book Activities(momto2poshlildivas.com)

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• Celebrate children’s book week 2012(examiner.com)

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• TD Children’s Book Week(4mothers1blog.wordpress.com)

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• Book Giveaway – Children’s Book Week(pugaliciouspress.com)

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• Children’s Book Week May 7-13, 2012(holyfamilysisters.org)

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I found this photo on I Can Has Cheezburger? and pinned it to my Makes Me Go “Awwww” board on Pinterest last night. In a matter of hours, it has been repinned 132 times!

So seriously cute!  Their caption called it a “Burrito”, which is technically true since “ito” means “little”. But I didn’t want to pin it as “Burrito” because I thought most of my Pinterest followers would be expecting to see a photo of, well, a burrito.  Anyway, that’s the photo that has been repinned 132 times in 11 hours!  If you’re on Pinterest and don’t use it for spam (seriously so sick of that already), leave me your Pinterest URL in a comment so I can come follow you! Mine is pinterest.com/table4five
 

This morning I took a look at Table for Five and decided it needed a Spring makeover! I’m already using the Genesis Framework from StudioPress, which I absolutely LOVE and would be happy to answer any questions about, and I had already purchased the Modern Blogger Child Theme to use on my blog MomReviews, so my first step was to upload Modern Blogger here, and then I rolled up my sleeves and got to work!

I replaced the default header graphic with one of my own by using the Windows snipping tool and then uploading the sample header to Picnik. Some stickers, some text, and the very helpful list of hex colors so I could make sure mine would match, and I had myself a bright, shiny theme!

It makes me feel like Spring is coming

Seriously, if any of you have questions about how the Genesis framework works, how child theme works, or how to tweak a child theme you already have, please feel free to ask in the comments or email me. I love helping other bloggers!