World Book Day

Today is World Book Day – a day to celebrate new books, old books, our favourite books, and our love of reading. Books play a central role in our house, whether they’re paperback novels, glossy hardbacked recipe books, large picture books, sci-fi, fantasy, chick-lit, historical novels, or ebooks… You name it, we probably read it!

From the day  he was born, Charlie and I have been keen to pass on a love of reading to Little Man. And so, he is growing up surrounded by books. There is a bookcase full of storybooks in Little Man’s room, to complement to one full of novels in our room. And the bookcase in the sitting room has one full shelf dedicated to Little Man’s books so that he can pluck a book off the shelf at any time during the day if he wants to read a story.

And we haven’t been shy about introducing ebooks to him either. The iPad is perfect for presenting picture books in ebook format. I put half our success with potty training recently down to reading Pirate Pete’s Potty on the iPad!

We have a set storytime each day – right before bed. Each night we read three stories to Little Man. He chooses his books from his bookcase, and we snuggle up to read together. Without a doubt, it’s my favourite activity of the day. Lately, he loves to finish the sentences in his favourite books while we read them – his first step towards reading, I guess. Hopefully I’ll be able to look back in a few years and point to this bedtime ritual as the starting point for Little Man’s lifelong love of reading.

Are books important in your house? What steps have you taken to pass on a love of reading to your little ones?