Kai's shelfie

We live with an eight-year-old reader, Kai, who is also adept with gadgets but isn't addicted to them (yet). Her time with her video games is limited by us. She doesn't whine for extended time with her electronic toys.

In fact, she still plays with old plush toys and Disney dolls--that means conversing with them, laying them out on my bed, seating them on my pillows and covering them with my shawl or a short blanket.

When she sees me reading though, she imitates me, gets her own book and quietly settles at a corner. Sometimes she falls asleep as I do, too. When she wakens, she asks how long she was out. When I say an hour or two, her eyebrows meet and she worriedly says, "I may have a hard time sleeping tonight." I just advise her to read or reread a favorite book again.

For many years, Old MacDonald's Had a Farm was her favorite. These days, she rereads Roald Dahl's titles for kids and watches on Netflix the film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I don't know how many times she has sat through it.

On the foreground is the feminist storybook Prince Cinders by Babette Cole, a favorite of my own children, Kimi and Ida, when they were as old as Kai.

In the summer of 2018, her grumpa Rolly Fernandez built for her her own shelves for her books and toys. The shelves were made of recycled materials--two old cabinet doors that the carpenters cut up to Rolly's specifications.

Sometimes Kai and her cousin Max, seen in second photo at last night's premiere of The Lion King at Ayala the 30th Mall in Pasig, swap books.

Cousins Max and Kai at a movie premiere

As poet Luisa A. Igloria once wrote in her FB status, don't show us your selfies. Show your shelfies!

To Kai and Max I only wish a Happy National Children's Book Day every day.