Years ago, my local Barnes & Noble had a Christmas tree set up in the center of the store. It was decorated with gift tags, and each tag had the name and age of a local boy or girl who was in need of a Christmas gift. I had so much fun buying books for boys and girls that year. I haven’t seen anything like it since, though my school did a book drive for a local chapter of Girls Inc. I don’t know why I haven’t seen the tree idea used again. I suppose it’s possible it wasn’t very successful, but I find it hard to believe (of course, that’s also because I bought a lot of the books myself, so naturally I assumed others did, too).
I find it harder and harder to figure out what books people might like for Christmas. Even me. I hate to admit it, but I’d much rather receive a bookstore gift card than a book. I can spend the money on whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I find this to be true even if I want a particular book, though I can’t say why, particularly because a book chosen as a gift usually sends the message, “I saw this and thought of you,” or “I loved this and wanted you to love it, too.” And I love to give books, even if I do have trouble figuring out what others will like.
One of my new roles at work involves working on the YA collection in our library. I also give book talks to the middle schoolers, and I absolutely love sharing books I enjoyed with them. Even more, I love it when they tell me how much they enjoyed a book. A student who heard my last book talk stopped me in the hall to tell me she read [amazon asin=0525478817&text=The Fault in Our Stars] in one evening and just loved it. Their teacher recently told me that many of her students were already finished with the books, which they had to read over their holiday break, and were requesting them for Christmas.
In a way, I almost feel like I gave those books as gifts, even though I didn’t physically do it. However, I have several books that have been given to me, book I actually really want to read, and I haven’t read them yet. Maybe 2013 is the year I need to do that. It feels sort of rude not to read a book given to me as a gift.
So what books are you giving for Christmas? What books do you hope to receive?
Merry Christmas to everyone.
I recently bought my daughter the book and stuffed snowman, "The Snowman" for Christmas. I bought the last book in the series of "The Diary of the Wimpy Kid" for one of my sons and 2 of the 3 books in the series of "I am Four". I love reading books and have really limited my reading of paperbacks. I just love the ease and font style of my Nook reader. I have noticed that a lot of the paperback books tend to have smaller font that I am used to and so I just deter from them to avoid eye strain 😉
Have a Merry Christmas!
I have a Kindle Fire, and I have to agree I tend to enjoy reading on it more, particularly big books. I love being able to see in the dark with the backlighting. I tried to get my daughter into the Wimpy Kid books. She used to read quite a lot, but she's tapered off.
The very best part of my job as a middle/high school librarian is sharing books with kids. Nothing beats the excitement I feel when I recommend books and they read and discover something they love. The Fault in Our Stars falls into that category, along with books by Gayle Forman, Ellen Hopkins, and Neal Shusterman, to name a few. I am truly disappointed when I run out of book suggestions for a student or my budget doesn't allow me to purchase books later in a much-loved series.
I really enjoyed giving the book talks. I'm not technically a librarian, but the librarian who usually handled the YA collection and did book talks resigned, and when it was discovered that I read and keep up with YA, I was asked to step in. I actually like it a lot. Before I decided to get my master's in Technology Integration, I was thinking about Library Science and becoming a media specialist, but I didn't want to leave the classroom.
I like giving books as gifts as well. It's sort easier since I know my brothers and sisters and husband's tastes a bit. I tailor book-giving to what kind they like to read. Otherwise, I'd be out to lunch on what book to get them
See, I sometimes think my daughters will like something, but then they don't read it. I don't know. My husband is even trickier.