I Give Up

Ok, the voices in my head can quit shouting at me now!  I give up! I give in!  I have joined the Goodreads 2013 Reading Challenge.  I know I said I wouldn't but I have.  I suppose it was meant to be.  I had pretty good luck with the same challenge in 2012 and, even though I didn't meet my goal, I came very close so, this year, I lowered my goal to 20 books.  I am sure that is quite do-able since reading and cross stitching are  about the only things I do anymore! However, between this, the classic children's challenge and babysitting,  I think that is all that I can handle.

I have to say that my decision to join was made  this morning when I was reading JLSHall's blog, A Little Reading.  It seems that she has signed up for twelve -- 12 -- 1-2 -- challenges.  Needless to say I felt quite the underachiever so I decided to forge ahead and sign up for one more.

For those who don't know, JLSHall and I are cousins.  I like to refer to us as sistercousins because were raised more as sisters than cousins and  our  relationship dynamic has always been more sisterly than cousinly.  She is a couple of years older which means she got to experience "life" first.  I found myself following in her footsteps.  Whatever she did, I had to do and my mother used her as sort of a parameter of what I could/could not do.  I was sort of like a puppy following her around and I am sure that became very annoying.  Over the years, however, our differences emerged and we became our own women -- each having strengths and weaknesses that  the other doesn't have.  However, we are more alike than different and I still look to her as a role model and I still follow in her footsteps although not quite so "in her face" as I used to.  That would explain my foray into the book challenges for this year.  Not as committed as she is but, as it has been all my life, if Joy is doing it then it must be a  good thing and I shall do it as well.

So, that coupled with  my opinion that one of the best things that a person can do in life is learn to read and do it was gusto, I will persevere.  I believe that reading is the most basic, most important skill a person can learn because if you can read, you have the world in your hands.  I thank JLSHall for all those reading lessons while playing "school" and for introducing me to the books that I hold dear now (Star Girl will be one of my choices) and, for that matter, writing such compelling reviews now that I go to when looking for new reading material.

With that, off I go, to Lakeport to join the Bobbsey Twins and back to Old Vic with my new BFF Judi!

The Bobbsey Twins

I have decided on my first book for the classic children's books challenge that I signed up for after saying I wouldn't.  I have decided to read the first book in The Bobbsey Twin series which was originally published in 1904.  I won't go through the whole series because there are 72 books and a number of them were originally published after the required date cut-off of 1960.  However, the last Bobbsey Twin book that I ever bought was The Bobbsey Twins Go To London Tower and it was published in 1959 so I will probably re-read it.  I remember when it was purchased.  My mother was Christmas shopping -- for me, I might add-- at Toudouze Market in San Antonio and I found the book and wanted it.  She asked if I wanted it for Christmas or right then  and I remember looking at her as if she were speaking in a foreign tongue -- I wanted it right then and I wanted to read it right then, in the store.  In fact, I had the thing half read before we ever got home from that shopping excursion.  I was a voracious reader at age 9.  I remember enjoying all the Bobbsey Twin books that I read and, so far, I am enjoying this one.

I will return with a review after I am done.  I doubt many of my bloggy friends will be too interested in my reading children's  books but I am such a sucker for them that I really couldn't pass up the challenge.  I read many children's books, on a daily basis, to Bean -- Granddaughter the Second.  None of them fill the challenge requirement because they are too short (must be at least 60 pages) but I do have my favorites and maybe I will start doing reviews on those!

At any rate, this is my first choice.  I have loaded it on my Nook and have already begun to read. If I really like it, I will probably head to my local antique mall and try to find a copy -- they have a huge children's book section so it isn't out of the realm of possibility.   What a contrast -- Judi Dench and The Bobbsey Twins!  Nobody can accuse me of not being diverse.

More later as I progress with this challenge.