Peaches and Peanuts

You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.

Charlie Tremendous Jones

There is just something about holding a book. As my finger turns the pages, the sound keeps me spellbound while the smell lingers around each line as if trying to tell me of the adventure that awaits.

I get my love of books from my mother. Her office and bedroom used to be covered in books. She could always be found reading late at night or while she waited for us at school or our activities.

Mom would take us to the library quite often for Summer reading. She always let us pick out several books to take home. We loved it!

Taking Eva to the library used to be a calming event. Now, she places books in my hands faster than I can read and shows Charlotte all her favorites as if she understands.

Like my mother, I have bookcases in many rooms of my house strategically filled and organized with excellent reads.

With all the responsibilities that consume my time, it takes me months to finish a book. But determination and interest keep me flipping the pages. Reading one at a time may be more productive, but I find so many captivate me that I can’t pick only one. I place books everywhere that I might glance at a page or two.

My girl’s bookcases are filled with light-hearted reads like Clifford, Amelia Bedelia, and Berenstain Bears. Classic stories warm their hearts when we open accounts by Beatrix Potter or Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose. Bible stories come to life through beautiful illustrations on each page.

I love seeing their little imaginations create pictures of the words I read. The lessons from Aesop’s Fables and Grimm’s Fairy Tales are embedded in their young minds.

When they are older, it will be such fun to take them down the Mississippi River with Tom Sawyer or inspire them with history from Laura Ingalls Wilder on the Great Plains of the Dakotas. Certainly, not forgetting to add a little romance with Anne of Green Gables, solve a good mystery with Nancy Drew, or find an unlikely friendship in Charlotte’s Web.

I desire for my children to love to read. I tell them often, “Everything has the potential to be taken away, except what is in your mind. Knowledge is power.” 

I remember one particular holiday my folks went out of town to a family reunion. I was in high school and decided not to ride with them. Although this is very unlike me, we had just moved to a new city, and I was a bit sad, lost, you might say. I decided to take a drive by myself. Even then, a back road could always make me feel better. I followed the road’s curves, not caring where it took me. It was beautiful and peaceful. Lonely also.

Then I looked out my window and saw an old house built on the side of a hill. I could tell it had been painted white in its glory days and had a beautiful, inviting front porch. As it stood before me, the paint was peeling terribly, and the front porch was beginning to sag. I saw a lady sitting in her rocking chair with her bare feet resting upon the rail. She held a book in her hand, and a glass of ice tea sat sweating on the porch railing.

Her house was not in shambles, but it wasn’t perfect either. She had decided part of her day would include stopping long enough to feel the breeze between her toes and the soft pages of a good book within her hands.

From then on, I devoured every book on my mother’s bookshelves. I spent time in college reading my educational books and beginning my own book collections.

The same way I reached and scanned my mother’s shelves for another book to read is the same way I want to find my girls pulling books off the shelves of my collections.

When time awards me nothing but a to-do list, I often think of the Summer scene I drove past. It gives me pause not to forget the importance of reading; for myself and my children. I am convinced a book will take you anywhere you want to go. And it has.

“I love that a good book can transport you to another culture, another age, and brand-new thoughts. When books are read aloud and shared as a family, the stories become a part of your shared thoughts, references, and humor- essentially new threads in the fabric of your ‘family culture’.” – Valorie Buck

The summer rain was coming down in sheets. but the air was warm and thick. I told Eva let’s hurry and go sit on the back porch to read our book while it rains. Excitedly, she scurried to gather peaches and peanuts. I smiled at the similarities between Eva and her daddy.

I sat down and Eva climbed up in my lap. Charlotte played happily in her play pen. While reading, drips of the juicy peach slid off Eva’s chin onto the pages and salty boiled peanut shells found their way to the ground. The sound of the rain playing it’s song in the background made me think- peaches and peanuts; not a bad way to enjoy a good book.

Welcome Home

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all your getting get understanding.” Proverbs  4:7