Ahhh, World Book Day

"Books to the ceiling, books to the floor, my pile of books is a mile high."

A hollowed out space in a gift book that I realized is a good place to store scattered bookmarks

My reading backlog is such that I've tried to discipline myself by not lingering too long when I'm inside Mt Cloud Bookshop. I can get waylaid there and find myself parting with what little I have in my wallet.

Meanwhile, Kai and I have spent precious moments reading over and over this Barbara M. Josse title Grandma Calls Me Beautiful, a birthday present from her adopted lola, Lorna Tirol. It's set in Hawaii, and at some point Kai does her "Hula hula, shake shake shake" moves. Never fails to amuse her lolo.

I've tried to balance my TV viewing hours and reading time. Again lack of discipline gets the upper hand not so much because TV temptations are stronger. It's my bad habit of flitting from one book to another so it takes longer to finish reading one.

This summer I enjoyed Menchu Sarmiento's latest collection of short fiction and essays, Ukay-Ukay (Anvil Publishing). Many times I paused to think who a character reminds me of. She is our mistress of social satire; the so-called upper class, the new rich are frequent targets of her sarcasm. Exclusive Catholic girls' schools are particularly fair game for ridicule. Recommended read for those who don't believe in light, happy endings.

To "get away" from Baguio where I'm spending summer, I "fly" to Brandon Stanton's multi-racial, multi-cultural, rich-in-fashion-quirks New York. His HONY (Humans of New York) project that earned hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers and "likers" is now in book form and in full color. A city is as good as its people- no wonder my daughter Ida has not given up on her dream of returning to NYC someday.

So immerse yourself in the pages of a book, gladly, madly, truly. Methinks one emerges from every reading experience more human.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Thank you, Dino Bob

Any day is a superbly super day for learning.    Image from Google +

Kai holds up a birthday book on grace from Lola Lorna Tirol    Photo by Booboo Babeth

Call it a granny's cop-out when she has run out of activities to keep a toddler occupied to help develop her gross and fine motor skills. But there's nothing like the invitation "Let's read a book!" to entice Kai/Butones to slow down a bit, then get cozy with her Booboo as she piles up the pillows for both of them.

Two weeks ago, this Booboo discovered Kai could already spell out the letters of book titles. She usually selects her book/s of the moment, and it was Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo by William Joyce that special day. I've read this aloud to her more than 10 times.

Suddenly, she pointed to one letter at a time and sounded out clearly the letters "B", "O" and "B". Mightily, I tried to be cool about it and move on to the story of the Lazardos who traveled all over the world in the company of a brontosaurus. 

Later, Kai zeroed in on the names of cable television channels like "F", "O", "X" (reminded me of a scene in the movie You've Got Mail where the kid playing Tom Hanks' step-sibling spells out "fox" for Meg Ryan's benefit) and "T", "L", "C", my favorite lifestyle channel (it's got a lot of food and travel shows). 

Later, it was the title of a bedtime book, Happy Birthday, Moon. The thing with the letter "Y" is Kai confuses it with "Z" so she calls it "zebra."

Last week when she was hospitalized for a gastro-intestinal bug, she read out from her sickbed the words on my sweatshirt, an entire phrase: "Grand Canyon National Park"! I had to text family members in Baguio and Pasig to share the priceless bit of news

As for writing, she still hasn't graduated from lines and semi-circles.

But I'm mighty proud I have somehow, day by day by day, set Kai on the course of reading and writing readiness. I feel grateful to Mesozoic, heroic Bob, the biggest you've ever seen, for making this minor miracle possible.