Our Book Worms

What?  You don't don your pearls to read?

Fans.  We're back.  The last few weeks have been lost to birthdays and the attendant birthday cakes, the last Twins game of the summer for us, visitors (form of: Bishopps!), a cocktail party, the last gasp of summer itself, the start of fall, and--frankly, a deluge of books that have come in at the library, for which there is a waiting list for many, putting pressure on one to read them straight away instead of issuing reports from the front here in the North Star State.

Now that we are back, we can report that we are all of us absorbed in our respective books.  Longtime Fans may recall that the school year at Susan Lindgren Elementary kicks off straight away with the annual read-a-thon fundraiser.  Last year's theme was Read to the X-treme, with that x-treme X.  We regret to tell you that this year's theme is something so tame and forgettable that we have in fact forgotten it.  But we are pleased to tell you that if you are so inclined, you may make a donation on behalf of Our Hero here by October 10.  He aims to read an average of 30 minutes a day over the course of the two-week read-a-thon.  So far, so good.  That's 420 minutes total in case you are a Fan making a what-you-would-have-pledged-per-minute-based donation.  Might be wise to keep your pledge per minute small.  The school-wide goal is 118,000 minutes.  If it's reached, then the Minnesota Science Museum will come and dazzle everyone with the delights of science.

It is also Reading Month at KinderCare (even if nationally, it is--at least according to the interwebs--March) so Birdie we have been logging the books that she is reading (or, more accurately, are being read to her) as well.  We are not counting the books that she reads every night after being tucked in since at this point, we think she is more "reading" them as best she can from memory.  By week's end, most of the books from her shelves are strewn about the floor and her bed, teetering in a stack on the nightstand.

Not infrequently, Joe will read to Clara.  You can see a clip of one such instance here. (Keep your eyes on their legs.)  They are both still huge fans of the Berenstain Bears and Fancy Nancy, but in recent months also met Henry and his enormous dog Mudge both of whom are now also beloved.  Turns out, Henry has a cousin!  Annie.  Annie has a bunny named Snowball.  These relations were just discovered this past week.  A whole new world has opened, which is of course, the joy of books.

Joe's Mudge.  Joe often sleeps on top of Mudge.  Probably because when he doesn't, there is barely room for both of them in his bed.

When Joe got Mudge, Clara got an equally enormous Pink Bear.