I'm Getting a Reading Here...

It's Quiet Time™ at Wonderwood Academy (11:00 PM) which means the girls are reading. I think the older one is re-reading The Wizard of Oz. Not terribly certain just what the younger is reading, because she chose to go read in Mommy and Daddy's bedroom the Teachers Lounge. The Lounge has nice reading lamps on the night stands tables, and she can snuggle relax in the blankets padded comfort of the chairs.

We love Quiet Time™ here at the Academy. This is primarily because the difference in decibel level from, say, five minutes ago is about 50 points. You really don't think two smallish persons who tend to be tremendously shy in public could possibly generate enough sound waves to register on seismic equipment in the Balkans, but they do.

Mrs. Woody, our Headmistress at Wonderwood, keeps a reading log on our student body. Since we are both technophiles from waaaay back she tends to do her own downloads. Thus I, personally, have never seen this reading log. But I'm in there because Mrs. Woody has decided that the Wonderwood Custodian is subject to the same accountability as the students. I have no idea how many books I've got listed under my name right now, but I can tell you this much: it's a considerably shorter list than the Woodyettes'.

I suppose this is because they tend — generally — to read shorter books. At least, they used to. The Doodle, who is now seven and a half years old, was until recently reading the sort of short pulp-fiction-for-young-reader books with titles like "Little Miss Muffet and the Cave of Danger." Nowadays, however, she appears to have graduated to tomes with titles like "War and Peace - An Exhaustive Concordance." That's what it looks like to me, anyway.

Jelly — now nearly ten — tends to favor volumes that enhance her already fertile imagination. She tries hard to become the characters she's reading about. In Harry Potter, for example, she dons Hogwarts robes and prances about the house Academy casting spells on everything that's not already enchanted. Like Dad. I mean, the Custodian. If she's reading an Oz book, I half expect to see her wearing blue gingham dresses and pony tails. (I haven't actually seen this behavior in conjunction with the Baum books, though... she may consider these to be a more cerebral exercise overall. My personal favorite Baum book is "Ozma of Oz." It has more to do with a favorite childhood memory rather than an appreciation for the story, but there you are.)

When we of the adult staff read books, we love to lose ourselves in cozies. I've only recently become aware of cozies. I'd been reading them for some time before Mrs. Woody informed me as to what, exactly, a "cozy" is. Several years ago I'd become a big fan of "The Cat Who..." series by Lilian Jackson Braun. Now my sweet wife has me hooked on the Hannah Swensen mysteries by Joanne Fluke. I admit it: I'm a sap.

I truly appreciate the fact that the Woodyettes choose to read whenever they need to wind down. They love to take books on our longer road trips. They'll curl up with a good story by themselves, or read one together, or snuggle with Mommy while she reads aloud to them.

We are, let's face it, a bookish family. And I love that about us.