Monitor What My Kids Are Reading? Nah.

The other day I was having a conversation with Hubby, aka Uber Nerd.  *Note that I said coversation and not debate*  We were in total agreement on the subject.  We were just blabbing around about how our oldest is just beginning to read and how cool it's going to be when we can share some of our favorite books with all three of the kids.

Even though we've had this conversation countless times (remember, nerds) we were talking about how we think our parents raised us in an environment that made it really easy to love reading.  We have two things in common on that front.  We learned to read early and were never restricted on the materials we could read (aside from straight up Romance or something).

I started off in the MG/YA of my time which was pretty dinosauric when I think back.  After that portion of the library had been exhausted I just read the authors my parents were reading.  Dean Koontz, Robin Cook, Peter Benchley, John Grisham, Stephen King...to name a few.  Keep in mind, I was probably 10 or so when I started reading these.  My parents did say that if it had anything inappropriate they didn't want me to read it, but I was allowed to self-monitor.  I did a pretty good job most of the time :)  I do remember reading Stephen King's Pet Sematary when I was 12ish. It was effing scary and had the first erotic scene I've read.  It involved a bubble bath and a rubber cleaning glove *yig* that I remember almost 16 years later.

Do I think a twelve year old should be reading Stephen King.  My knee-jerk answer is "H to the No".  But looking back I was mature enough to stop reading when I felt uncomfortable.  I stopped reading at that scene and didn't finish the book until years later.

Reading those adult books created a spark that ignited my mind and still burns to this day.  I am a ravenous book consumer and I love to write as well.  I give alot of the credit for that to my parents.  I feel I would be doing my own kids a great disservice if I used the modern day, micro-managing parental mindset and didn't let them open their imaginations and let their own creativity blossom .

If my kids can read and comprehend adult books and they are interested in reading them, I say "Go for it!".  Within reason of course :)

What do you think?  Were you given free reign at the library as a child?  What will/do you do with your own kids?

Fangirl Review (that's a lie . . . it's not a review): The Walking Dead Volume 1

Like I said, this really isn't a review. I'm just singing praises.

Summary of my thoughts on The Walking Dead: Volume 1:
This is probably more for people that 1. Love graphic novels  2. Love The Walking Dead tv series or
3. Kind of like both of those things.



I've read a few comics here and there throughout my life - I am married to a nerd after all - but I've never really felt any sort of investment in them. Now, if you know me personally in any way then you probably know how hard I fangirl over The Walking Dead on AMC.  I could give lists of the reasons why, but I can sum it up by saying that I feel emotionally invested in the show, the story and the characters.

So it stands to reason that I would want to check out the comics that the show is based off of.  I kept hearing how different the show is from the graphic novels, and I finally just had to see for myself.  The show has one episode left to air (on Sunday!!) in the second season and I read the first Volume which contains the first 6 actual comics.  There are a TON of things that are different but all in all the show holds true to the spirit and story in the comic.  They have switched up quite a bit, but I think that just makes it more enjoyable for people that were fans of the comics before the show ever aired.  Even they don't really know what's going to happen.

My main thoughts coming away from Volume 1 of The Walking Dead was that I really do like graphic novels as long as they aren't about super heroes (sorry to people that like super hero stories) and that the writer of the comic and the tv show are true geniuses.

Any other Walking Dead fans out there waiting with bated breath for Sunday's episode? Have you read the comics? Do you think you will at some point?

ALA Midwinter 2012 in Dallas!

I am so excited to be attending ALA Midwinter this year! Luckily for me, it is being hosted in Dallas, and therefore is super close to where I live. This will be my first bookish event, and I've been counting down until I finally get to go :-)

My sis, Jessi, over at The Elliott Review got to go to ALA this past summer in New Orleans, and it sounded like such an amazing time to meet authors and other peeps from the blogging community. We are very excited to go to ALA Midwinter together!

If you happen to be going to Midwinter check out this post by Jen over at I Read Banned Books. You can get some good info and links. Plus, you can sign up in her linky to rsvp for dinner Friday night :-) Should be a great time!

What bookie event are you excited about for this year?

Adventures in Audiobooks

Well, it's time for me to fess up. Since starting this book blog back in June, I have let a few things around the house go to crap. Mmmm, maybe more than a few. During the day I'm supermom (a really bad, unorganized, not as annoying version) and in the evening I have to portion out some kind of time for my husband. The rest of my night is spent reading or blogging and hopefully sleeping in there somewhere :-)

This schedule hasn't left much room for cleaning or organizing. Since I have three small children running (and screaming and fighting) around my house, it's hard to do much housework during the day. And honestly I'd rather spend it doing stuff with them anyway. So I used to just keep up with any cleaning or laundry after they were all soundly sleeping.

That used to work fine, but now I'm reluctant to give up any reading time to do any boring old housework. Who would rather iron a two foot high pile of laundry instead of read? Uh, not this girl!

Now, I realize I'm late to the whole audiobook thing, but I recently got this little bookmark thing at my library talking about loading audiobooks onto your iPod. And that's when it hit me!! I could do gross, annoying (but totally necessary) housework . . . while listening to somebody read me a book on my iPod! Yes!! Now all my problems are solved, right? :-)

They had a very respectable and current selection of books on my library's website, and the audiobook I picked first was:

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

It took some getting used to, and I'm not sure if the lady reading the book is annoying, mediocre, or good. I will have to make a final decision once I've listened to some other narrators. Then I'll have something to compare her to. I also felt kind of lost at first without having the actual book in my hands. But I think it will work out nicely!

Does anybody else like audiobooks? When do you listen to them?