Book It

We have a book problem. They are everywhere. They spill out from the shelves onto the floor. They are under every piece of furniture in the house. They are huge part of our budget even though we really don't NEED any more books but by golly we want them. It isn't entirely my fault. The schools send home these catalogs and if we buy books then the schools get money and books for their classroom. It's charitable, really.
And then we have the library. Oh beautiful library with your tempting arrays of books that, somehow, we still don't own. Those books come home with us too and then they are almost impossible to find when it is time for them to go back because they just hide behind the thousands of books that we do own. I'm not sure that that number is an exaggeration. We come by this problem honestly. Marc's father has a prized shirt which reads, "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." Apparently this is a quote from Desiderius Erasmus. Marc grew up in a home which has load-bearing bookshelves. They are on every wall and they were full until Marc's dad started donating large numbers of them to the BYU library. Sometimes I am exasperated by all these books that seem to be slowly and methodically taking over our house. However, sometimes I see scenes like these:

Then my heart melts and all is forgiven. If having all of these books helps our children love the written word then so be it. If I can turn a turbulent afternoon into a peaceful one merely by distributing the books I picked out at the library that day for each them then I will put up with the avalanche of books cascading from our shelves in the living room. If I never have to fill out a Book It calendar so my boys can get a free personal pizza from pizza hut because my boys don't need pizza as a motivation to read then I will make peace with the book monster under the couch. Well played books, well played.