I was reading Ask Allison last week while waiting for the doctor’s office to open (BabyD had pink-eye) and her topic was the publishing industry’s holiday campaign to convince the public to give books this Christmas.
I like books. I am getting two books myself from Rob, but I wonder just how convinced the general population will be by this ad.
I liked Jon Stewart’s subtle reminder of just how addicted many of us our to the screen, but I like Maya Angelou’s the best – because she was very right.
I was reminded again of the important role certain books play in our lives when an old friend from grade school turned up on Facebook. She told me she had recently found a book that she says I introduced her to back in the 3rd grade called Shadow Castle. I couldn’t place it, so a quick google refreshed my memory a bit about the plot. It takes place in a castle on the edge of fairyland where a fairy prince and his family have been living under a spell that reduces them to mere shadows. The prince is a fairy creature but his wife is mortal. I don’t recall their love story exactly but they are separated somehow by the shadow spell and long to be together and only the main character, a little girl named Lucy, can reunite them.
I may have to hunt this book down and add it to my collection of old Scholastic paperbacks of my childhood. I originally began searching for them for BabyD. I hoped to pass these stories to her. She does love to be read to but is having problems learning to read herself. This makes me sad and it scares me a bit, despite knowing she can’t get sick like her dad, every time something that reminds me of his illness crops up (he completely forgot how to read and hid it for months from everyone), I panic just the tiniest bit deep inside. I hate that I constantly scan her for what killed him, but it was a genetic illness and you can never truly say never.
Giving books though is problematic if you don’t know the other person’s taste because like books, you can’t judge people by what they appear to be interested in on the surface.
But if not books, then what? Leave your Christmas wish list here, Santa reads my blog.
anniegirl1138 
Oh, yes, books. The best gift for me is a gift card to a book store, so I can buy my own books. Maybe today I want a cookbook, tomorrow a crochet book, who knows. I don’t usually purchase fiction, I prefer to get that from the library. But you can never go wrong with a book for me. I will just take it back if I don’t like it, and get something more to my taste.
books – my plan to give, and my hope to get. the sweetest gifts i’ve ever received from my kids have always been books! and while they’ll get some practical stuff, and some silly stuff, they’re getting books… nothing else on my list (if i could put “time to READ” on my list, that would be there as well…)
my favourite gift to receive is always a book. and I always include a book with every birthday or christmas present for family and friends.
Annie, even after reading your blog for a long time I still don’t know what your first husband died from. Was it Huntington’s?
No, it was x-ALD (like the little boy in Lorenzo’s Oil). It strips the nerve endings and the dura matter surrounding the brain.