Surround them with books at every corner!

If you ask most mums, especially those who love getting lost in a book themselves, nothing makes them happier than to see their kids voluntarily picking up a book and reading away. The only thing that pips that for me, is when K does that, AND tells little B, “Come, I read to you”. Ah, that just propels me straight into the land of mummy bliss.

So to nudge them towards a lifelong love for the written word, we fill our home with books we like, books that tell of adventures, books that teach them to imagine, to love, to laugh. We place the books within easy reach (which also means the shelves are incredibly messy more often than not), so that they can choose whichever book they fancy.

Since the entire selection has been somewhat curated by us, we are happy to let them read anything. Though they tend to go back to familiar favourites.

As pictured here, the girls are reading “Hippos go Berserk”, which is one of our favourite recent acquisitions from The Groovy Giraffe! I love board books since they are hardy and can withstand the man-handling of my rambunctious three year old, who gives me heart palpitations whenever she gets near a new book (books are very precious to me).

I’ve since learnt to steel my heart and let them go at the books, since a crumpled book is a well-loved one (ouch).

These days, I’d rather invest in picture books for my children, since they can be read again and again, rather than novels for myself, which I tend to read once through and then shelve forever after. Rare is the piece of adult fiction that I’d see myself reading more than once. The only exceptions for me are probably certain books by Vikram Seth and AS Byatt.

So… when an online store with great prices is having a sale on top of it all, it’s time to stock up again!

Our favourite Groovy Giraffe is giving a whole 15% off on children’s books from now till 19 March, in celebration of hitting more than one thousand Facebook likes, woot!

Go grab your books now – the code to use is LBB15. (I find their activity books especially apt as gifts for children of preschool age.) Have a great time browsing!