My daughters are the first grandchildren on both sides of our family, and they have an unending number of grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles and good family friends who like to spoil them rotten at Christmastime. As a result, in years past, we’ve headed home with a carload of toys and the overwhelming task of figuring out where to put them all.
This year, I made a preemptive strike and pleaded with these loved ones to give the girls books, and only books, if they could possibly restrain themselves. Inspired by “A Family of Readers,” written by the editors of The Horn Book Magazine, I even went as far as creating a shared Google document with titles from our children’s book wish list. And much to my delight, a fair number of people made use of this list. Better yet, several people gifted us wonderful, unique and beautiful books I’ve never laid eyes on before.
Between these gifts and the books I selected for the girls myself, I realized we should have also asked Santa for a new bookcase.
But the girls weren’t the only happy bookworms this year. I’ll be receiving “The Horn Book Magazine” and “School Library Journal” in 2012, and my thoughtful husband also converted my blog into a dot-com address. You can now find me at goingonabookhunt.com.
But my absolute favorite literary Christmas gift was the t-shirt my little sister found in Iowa City, Iowa, for my daughter, Eloise, who is most certainly a Major League Reader. You can find them online at Tshirt Booyah.
I’m looking forward to sharing all of our new favorite books with you in 2012!
Going on a Book Hunt 
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