Please welcome Bea today and when you finish the post go read a book please!
Drop Everything and Read Day – A guest post by Bea from Bea’s Book Nook
Every year April 12th is Drop Everything And Read day. Sponsored by HarperCollins Childrens Books along with the American Library Association, the National Education Association and the Parent Teacher Association and other groups, the idea is to encourage reading while also promoting family togetherness. Children’s author Beverly Cleary is the official spokesperson; in fact, today is her 95th birthday!! It’s also mine, but I’m not 95. I do love that my birthday is on the same date as D.E.A.RE., nothing could be more appropriate. Libraries, bookstores and schools will present or promote activities in your community, though many have had to scale back or cancel altogether due to budgetary constraints.
The organizers would like every family to take 30 minutes today and read as a family. Pick a book, any book, or even a magazine, and read. Make sure that your computer (unless it’s your reading device), TV, Xbox, etc. are turned off. Then, sit and read. Read one book together out loud, or each read a separate book quietly, but read. While my family rarely read together, we did, and do, read. There were books in every room and nook and cranny in the house when I was growing up. I could always count on a book as a birthday present and as a Christmas present. I had library cards to 3 different libraries – my hometown, my school, and the military base (my father was in the military). I have many memories of evenings at my father and stepmother’s house on while I was home on college breaks of all 3 of us in the kitchen, reading.
As far as I’m concerned, in an ideal world, every individual would read 30 minutes, or more, a day. Life is rarely that simple. But, most people can make time to read – if you work out of the house but don’t drive to work, your commute can become your reading time; if working out on a treadmill and reading while in motion doesn’t make you nauseous, read something; soaking in the tub – read. You get the idea. Like anything worth doing or that we place importance on, you will find or make the time if you make it a priority.
Does it matter what you read? Yes and no. If all you read is work related material, you are probably not going to much enjoyment out of the experience. But neither does it need it to be a book – read the newspaper, a magazine, a blog, or even the advertising flyers, (when I’m bored enough, I’ll read ANYTHING, even the ingredients list on a detergent bottle) whatever sparks your interest and/or you have on hand. Read.
Contact your local school (even if you don’t have children) and offer to volunteer; have an event, big or small, at your home or elsewhere; volunteer at someone else’s event. Make it as simple or as complicated as you please. But Drop Everything and Read.
Every year April 12th is Drop Everything And Read day. Sponsored by HarperCollins Childrens Books along with the American Library Association, the National Education Association and the Parent Teacher Association and other groups, the idea is to encourage reading while also promoting family togetherness. Children’s author Beverly Cleary is the official spokesperson; in fact, today is her 95th birthday!! It’s also mine, but I’m not 95. I do love that my birthday is on the same date as D.E.A.RE., nothing could be more appropriate. Libraries, bookstores and schools will present or promote activities in your community, though many have had to scale back or cancel altogether due to budgetary constraints.
The organizers would like every family to take 30 minutes today and read as a family. Pick a book, any book, or even a magazine, and read. Make sure that your computer (unless it’s your reading device), TV, Xbox, etc. are turned off. Then, sit and read. Read one book together out loud, or each read a separate book quietly, but read. While my family rarely read together, we did, and do, read. There were books in every room and nook and cranny in the house when I was growing up. I could always count on a book as a birthday present and as a Christmas present. I had library cards to 3 different libraries – my hometown, my school, and the military base (my father was in the military). I have many memories of evenings at my father and stepmother’s house on while I was home on college breaks of all 3 of us in the kitchen, reading.
As far as I’m concerned, in an ideal world, every individual would read 30 minutes, or more, a day. Life is rarely that simple. But, most people can make time to read – if you work out of the house but don’t drive to work, your commute can become your reading time; if working out on a treadmill and reading while in motion doesn’t make you nauseous, read something; soaking in the tub – read. You get the idea. Like anything worth doing or that we place importance on, you will find or make the time if you make it a priority.
Does it matter what you read? Yes and no. If all you read is work related material, you are probably not going to much enjoyment out of the experience. But neither does it need it to be a book – read the newspaper, a magazine, a blog, or even the advertising flyers, (when I’m bored enough, I’ll read ANYTHING, even the ingredients list on a detergent bottle) whatever sparks your interest and/or you have on hand. Read.
Contact your local school (even if you don’t have children) and offer to volunteer; have an event, big or small, at your home or elsewhere; volunteer at someone else’s event. Make it as simple or as complicated as you please. But Drop Everything and Read.
Now, turn off your computer and go read.
Thank You.
Thank You.
Thank you Bea, Happy Birthday and when I get out from behind the wheel of my car later today will sit and read and read and read!
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