Encouragement to buy more books...

... like we really need more encouragement, right?  When I visit my favorite haunts I most always come home with at least a few new titles.  Lately I've found myself getting more and more selective - it's that problem of room on shelves AND room for shelves...

On my last jaunt to Book Buyers  (LIKE them on facebook) I came home with quite a stack.  Among them I found a very nicely illustrated copy of Bullfinch, a beautiful vintage illustrated edition of Hiawatha, and yet another copy of Mike Mulligan each of which went upstairs onto the boys personal shelves.  I also found a gilded, illustrated copy of Tennyson - the complete writings.  The cloth binding was a bit frayed and worn and I debated - it was $10.  I don't often pay that much for a used book - the last time was for a first edition of Jonathan Edwards 'On Charity'.  I didn't blink twice over the $15 price for that one, though - you can feel the type on the page where it was block printed.

When I came home I glanced through the Tennyson book, dipping into a few poems and then reluctantly placed it on the very short poetry shelf in our 'library'.  I knew I should take the time to repair it before putting such a fragile binding on the shelf because the boys, well, they READ.  Even the poetry books come down - this year even the three year old sat through ALL of Hiawatha.

Tonight we were reading Little Town On The Prairie.  Chapter 12 - Snug for Winter - and there it was in illustrated text that stood out enough for me to notice it before I got to that paragraph - "Tennyson's Poems".  So I stopped before I read the title of the book that Laura pulled out from the bottom drawer between the flannels and I directed Jonathan to the shelf and book without giving it away and he brought it over.  The boys were captured.  I read the description of the green cloth book with gold edges and scrolls on the cover - and it was very much like our copy.

When Laura opened up and began to read from Lotus Eaters Jesse had to know if our copy had that poem.  We quickly found it and he followed along in our book as I read from Little Town.  We finished the chapter and Laura was left wondering 'like what' because her self control would let her read no more after realizing that she had found a secret.  Jesse found it great fun to keep reading the rest of the first verse to find out that it was a stream that Tennyson was talking about and it was 'like a downward smoke'.  He had me continue reading and so we read the whole introduction of the poem.

He said, "It sounds like a marsh."  I explained that a lotus is a flower that grows in the water much like a water lily (honestly I don't know much more than that).  He commented that there were lots of things he didn't understand and we talked about having to sometimes read poetry over and over - and he finished my sentence - "until you get it!"
I have a feeling we'll be reading more Lotus Eaters soon.  So next time my fingers waver over a title I hope to remind myself of this evening and the joys of having just the right book at just the right time and convince myself that there are enough pennies, and the shelves are long enough for more books, and their are still enough walls for more books.

Sure we could have looked it up electronically (and I love technology), but there was such delight in being able to pull off the shelf that shiny, green, gilded, scrolled copy before widening eyes! I'm not sure I would have been asked to read more Tennyson had it been from a computer screen.

Now I really do need to give this copy some TLC because now that it has been 'discovered' it's sure to get a lot of action.  I look forward to the evenings to come to see how this book is woven into the story as we read.