Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Today I am outlining all the book-related ways my Mom is awesome. She’s awesome in many other ways, but since this is a book blog, you get book related things. 🙂 (A lot of these also apply to my Dad, but it’s not his day so…)

1. She has recommended some great books to me.
   Did you know she’s the one who recommended Harry Potter to me? That alone should tell you how fantastic her book game is.
2. She still recommends books for me to read.
   I wrote an entire post about it, which you can find here.
3. She read books aloud to us when we were younger.
   The one I remember the most was The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White. She read it to us before we were old enough to read it ourselves, and it was a great book to read and think about as a family.
4. She would read books while we read books, just so she could discuss them with us.
   She read the Harry Potter series side by side with me, so that we could discuss them once I finished.
5. She taught us to be readers by being an example of a great reader.
   My mom still reads all the time, and she did the same when we were children. (If I remember correctly, we thought it was funny to try to distract her from reading, or to jump on her while she was reading, back when we were toddlers.)
6. She would let us choose a book to purchase from Scholastic.
   There were usually two 99 cent books as part of the Scholastic book flyers. She often let us choose one of them to add to our collection. In kindergarten I got one about different kinds of apples (don’t remember the title though), and as I got older, this was how I added Santa Paws and The Dolphin Diaries to my collection.
7. She took us to the library all the time.
   Even to this day, libraries are still a wonderful, magical place. When we were little we got to pick out picture books to take home. I’m fairly sure I pretty much always chose Mary Wore Her Red Dress. When we got older we got to participate in the library’s summer reading programs. She’d let us wander the kids area of the library on our own while she went to look for books for herself. We had an entire shelf at home dedicated to library books, since as a family we checked so much out and read so much. By the time I graduated I had my library card number memorized and I knew many of the librarians there.
8. We grew up in a home filled with books.
   I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have a bookshelf. We had a white cube-like one when we were younger, which was great for our large picture book collection. I had my own (!) night-stand size one when I was in elementary school, which was awesome – it gave me ownership for the care of my books. And while I don’t think we ever bought books new, we always seemed to be inheriting them or finding them for cheap. I was never in want of books growing up.
9. She started a business selling books.
   If you’re not yet convinced that my mom is awesome, maybe this will convince you – she started her own business! Being the bookish family we are, it was natural for her to start a company selling books. My Dad left his job and joined her a couple years after she started it, and it’s still what they do to this day. (If you’re curious, links to their Amazon and eBay stores can be found here.)
10. She worked hard to teach me how to read.
    I don’t remember much of the process of learning how to read. But I know my mom would sit with me on the couch almost everyday when I was in kindergarten, guiding me through a book. The one that I remember fulling reading myself was Richard Scarry’s Farmer Patrick Pig. Although there were plenty of other books in there, including Go Dog Go, Hop on Pop, and some book about a fat cat.

There you go! A short glimpse into why my Mom is awesome. In what bookish ways is your mom awesome? Let me know!

❤ Annette