Addiction

I have an addiction to the printed page. I read all the time. I love magazines, mysteries, non-fiction books about education and psychology and faith. I also love reading books for kids. I have a book review blog where I write about the books I am reading. I have an entire bookshelf (three shelves plus the top) stacked with books that I bought but haven't read yet. Why not?

Because of the library....

I love the freedom of buying a book and taking wherever with me and not being worried about due dates or dog-earing the pages. But the library allows me to read books I wouldn't normally buy, either because I know I will only read them once or because I am not sure I will even like them. We often have over 50 books checked out of the library in our household at any given moment.

But this week was going to be different. I have planned a Harry Potter review session for my book review blog at the end of the month. I want to review the series and several commentary books I have. But I need to read the series again in order to read the commentaries, so I need to focus on Harry for awhile. I took cell-phone pictures of the library books I wasn't done with so I could check them out later and my son and I loaded all of the library books up to return. My son, who is six, had also decided to return all of his books. He has plenty to read on his book shelves, too.

We were just going to go in, drop off all of our books and pick up the three I had on hold. Just three books. No more....

Did I mention I have an addiction to books? They call to me, filled with potential - inventive stories, interesting characters, reams of information. I couldn't resist. Two bulging book bags later, my son and I checked out of the library. I shook my head as we walked to the car like a couple of pack mules. So much for only checking out my three on-hold books. We have no will-power at the library. But it warmed my heart to realize that my son is as addicted to books as I am. That isn't a bad quality in a person, in my opinion.