Both Kai and Yang received their library card as their first birthday gift. They have not used their card yet. A lack of interest from Kai is one thing. We have also not been going to the library much, oops. But today, I used Yu's card to borrow seven books coz 2016 babies all get a goodie bag for borrowing six books! And did I mention the library card is a special edition too?
The goodie bag - yellow library card at bottom right
The bag which comes with a zip is perfect to use as a library bag. I remember that when I was a kid, we would utilise all five cards to borrow 20 books! Can't remember how many bags we used! Now, each card can borrow eight books! But the loan period remains at three weeks.
Yu reading a book on trucks
After getting his card, I nursed him before reading a book on trucks to him. But I barely snapped the photo before he got all grumpy and rejected the book, refusing to even sit still. So I quickly grabbed some books, redeemed his goodie bag and left. Think we spent more time nursing than reading *.*
This evening, I read a book with dinosaurs to the two at dinner time. They loved it! Then I read a Chinese book 小手不是用来打人的 to Yang - it's clear why I borrowed this book hoho! - while Kai was showering.
Our kiddy bookshelf is at the bottom left side of our desk, with books stored with their binders facing out. But for children, it's better to show the whole front cover. We have no such display shelf but we have a long TV bench so I lined them up for them to discover in the morning :)
Hope they like the surprise bookshelf!
Oh, I read them all just now :p
But I really should go find an age-appropriate book to read. I'm now in the very long queue for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I'm fifth in line; think I started at eighth in November!!
Anyway, hope this first loan of kiddy books from the library would mark a long, regular and frequent relationship between the boys and the library. I started reading at primary two I think. We would make the trek to the AMK library every three weeks and spent the whole morning queueing to return books, looking for books and queueing to borrow them. Back then, the borrowing queue was so long that sometimes I would finish a couple of books in the queue and hurried to grab replacements!
By secondary school, think the system improved to a kiosk instead of a manned counter. CY and I used to go to the library together every two weeks and had KFC after that haha! Can't remember how we decided on KFC already!! But somewhere along the line, we stopped going to the library... But I continued to borrow from NJ library. I think I also borrowed from the Oxford Public Library before - can't remember for sure!!
My working life didn't include many books, unfortunately, until I discovered Overdrive a couple of years back. It's the only way I could fit reading into my life. I can use only one hand, while nursing, while going to work, while eating. I've always been a fiction reader. Or science - I borrowed things like astronomy books way back. But on Overdrive, I also read other works of interest, like Alibaba, which turned out to be very interesting!!
Lately, I haven't been reading much. Yu's nursing sessions are getting really short. And I seem to have never-ending things to do when I'm not busy with Yu! Ok, blogging is one culprit :p Shall try to read more from next week!
Update 10 Feb 2017
Laying out the books in plain sight is useful! The boys pick up the books in the morning and just now :) Hope their interest lasts :)
Three things/incidents:
1) I read a simple Chinese book to Kai this morning and asked him to read it himself, basically reciting from memory. He said he didn't know Chinese so he retold the story in English! *.* Well, at least he understood the story.. Need to motivate him to speak more Mandarin...
2) One part of another book saw a snake saying that he couldn't cover his ears. I asked Kai why. He said coz he didn't have hands, giving me a look that said "isn't it obvious....?"
3) Yang listened to the stories but he was also very interested in the pictures. He asked what this and that were. Just now, he even counted windows in the Chinese book - all the way to 15 in angmoh-accented Mandarin!
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