Gorging Ourselves at the All-You-Can-Read Book Bar

T. and I came to an agreement today regarding his summer reading and computer time. He will be allowed to have as much computer time as he spends time reading. As I explained to him, he can read for five hours and earn five hours on the computer, etc., etc. Of course, this reading and computer time has to be worked in around his regular school subjects (and so far, we have only finished Bible study this year, which means we really need to get cracking if we are going to finish grammar and Latin up soon to allow more time over the summer for history, writing, and science), but he is still very excited about the possibilities of our deal. I am excited about the possibility of getting him into the habit of reading, which, except for occasional binges on Calvin & Hobbes and Harry Potter, he has not been that keen on. Also, he mostly spends his time on the computer drawing pictures and making little movies, so it isn't really as much a waste of time as if he were just surfing the net (is this still an expression?) or reading homeschooling chat boards.

In preparation for T.'s big dive into reading, we went along into town with Ed today when he headed to the hospital to pick up the report on his latest MRI. He dropped us off at the library, and the kids and I pigged out on books. I know I've said it before, but our library is a very nice one. The collection is tiny, but the staff are wonderful, and they are perfectly happy to get books from the other libraries in the system or place inter-library loans (though there is a fee for this last). Also, there is no limit on the number of books you can check out! The librarian told me today that they will even help you carry them to the car if your greed exceeds your strength. Wow! Now that is dedication to increasing circulation statistics. Today we very nearly did need help hauling our loot out, but not quite. I only had one book, The Higher Power of Lucky (and I just checked with T. to find out if he knew the meaning of the word which is on the first page of this book and which is causing it to be banned. He didn't, but now he does, and, astonishing, I don't think learning this new word has damaged his moral fibre a bit.), but I also put three books on ILL. T. managed to find quite a nice stack of books which he thought looked interesting and I didn't think looked like rubbish (this is one of the requirements of our deal -- they don't have to be history related or "classics," but they can't be complete trash). K. piled up a small mountain of picture books and wanted them all read to her right away. It was an Extremely Satisfactory afternoon.