A love of libraries

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love books and reading. I’ll be honest, it’s a little bit odd that I don’t write about books more often but I’ve never really been one for writing reviews. However, more and more frequently I’ve become surprised by how few adults I come across own library cards, let alone understand why they would want one. This baffles me! I’ve used libraries from pretty much as soon as I was reading and having enjoyed them as a child the thought never even crossed my mind that I wouldn’t use them as an adult. But apparently it’s not a service that everyone makes use of, and libraries are one of our services that are at risk of losing funding. This post shares my love of libraries, through different ages and for different reasons. View Post

World Book Day: My favourite children’s books

World Book Day comes around every year and as an adult it appears to have very little importance. Other than my colleagues who have spent the week trying to find suitably creative costumes for their children to wear to school that day, for many adults World Book Day comes and goes without any significance. I’ve written before about why I think that should change. However, I recently attended a talk given by a number of booksellers on the theme “the books that made me” and in the limited number they discussed, each of them started with a book from childhood. It got me thinking about the books which had had an impact on me throughout my life so far, but particularly the number of children’s books which had helped to lay that groundwork. View Post

World Book Day

When I was younger (and I’m talking primary school age here), World Book Day was a huge deal. You used to get to dress up, and as a different character each year! You were given book tokens for free, and the Scholastic book fair often used to come and visit at the same time. What wasn’t to love? However, as you get older, it’s no longer a big deal. This disappoints me. View Post