Have you explored shelfari at all? I don’t use it as much of a social site, which I suppose it could be, but it’s a really great place to keep track of the books that you want to read. If you need help doing that. I know I do.

I like your choices and have read most of them and am on the waiting list for most of the rest. I suspect this isn’t your complete bookshelf — merely your PF/PP bookshelf. While I tend to agree with Shevy and would love to have a minimum of 25+ books in every room, I have to cope with moving every two years and my books take up a good portion of my weight allowance.

I read to my children until they were through high school. My husband also sat in on the reading sessions. I tried different types – sci fi, comedy, romance, adventure. My daughter still does not enjoy sci fi, but she remembers Willis the baby Martian. My son loved an English romance because there were lots of car chases and adventure. They all loved Kon Tiki, Aku Aku, etc. They also laughed a lot at Herr Reisenfern and we read Christmas poetry and A Christmas Carol each year.

But, one of my favorite reading adventures was teaching my mother to love reading. She had only gotten to the sixth grade and had never had time to read even the children’s books. Time’s were hard in her family. She always complained that I read too much. So-I started her on the Five Little Peppers, Little Women, Jo’s Boys, etc. She then went on to read more and more until she was almost as prolific a reader as I was.

However, I am not a very avid reader of financial or motivational books. I get my best information from sites such as yours, the Tightwad Gazette, et. I also have a book I love called “ReUses, 2133 Ways to Recycle and Reuse the Things You Ordinarily Throw Away.” When you read too many hints, you often fail to use any of them. So each few months, I grab ReUses and pick one thing out to try on a regular basis. It has worked great.

If you want to raise a reader, it is important that you provide a literature rich environment and that you as a parent model reading. And most importantly, that you read, read, read to them!!! Take advantage of programs like the summer reading club at public libraries. Sometimes you can link your child up with a volunteer ‘reading buddy’ through the library.

Also note that there is a well-documented sex difference in childrens’ reading. Boys are much less likely to enjoy reading and are less likely to consider themselves good at reading. Instilling a love of books at an early age will certainly help.

Thanks for the post-
Little House

I write a bright green environmentalism blog, and it’s amazing to me how much overlap there is between personal finance and thinking in new ways about how we live on the planet. One thing I love about the Tightwad Gazette — and about The Simple Dollar — is that they are both about living thoughtfully, with intention and creativity.

If anything is truly going to lift us up into the kind of clean, just future we want to live in, it’s this kind of attitude toward life. Thanks for another great post.

A great library is acquired one book at a time, with books you care about being added as you finish reading them. Whether they make you laugh, make you think, make you learn or make you remember, those books are the bricks of which a great library is built.

A “library” full of books you haven’t read is a pretentious display, rather like buying books by the foot or yard to fill a specific size of bookshelf. It’s also a waste of money, while those shelves of well-loved, often read volumes are not.

In at least one childrens’ literacy program, the number of books in the home correlated positively with the literacy of the children. They found that homes with at least *25 books* nurtured the most literate children! When I read that, I walked through my home and found that the only *room* that contained *less* than 25 books was the bathroom. My 3 grown children are all voracious readers.

The library is nice and my 6 year old usually goes once a week to the school library and once every week or two to the public library (where she takes out up to 5 books at a time). However, I consider it to be only an adjunct to the real thing, the shelves that are available 24 hours per day, every day, at my house.

“A great library isn’t full of books you’ve already read and know – it’s full of books you haven’t mastered and haven’t yet read.”

Noooooo!! A great library is full of books with lasting value (educational or entertainment). And, perhaps pertinent to your situation as a parent, a great library is full of books that your kids observe you to read and enjoy.

Now, I know that you are a devoted public library-user and as such you are providing a great example to your kids. But for those who don’t or can’t use the public option, a personal library is only a negative when it becomes clutter.

Yours is a terrific list, “Made to Stick” in particular is one I’ve been tempted by since its authors write for Fast Company magazine, which is the only business magazine I read.