Do any of you belong to families where EVERYBODY likes to read? I coaxed everyone else along in this area, and have pretty much made them as crazy about reading as I am! :) Daniel comes to Sarah and I at night, flops on our bed, or walks slowly over to our shelf and asks what book he should read. I feel like some sort of seller of furs as I exhibit the pros and cons of each book. I have read them all. The hunt for a good book always ends up rather flat, because so has Daniel. Actually, we've read all those books several times. The younger girls ravage my bookshelf continuously. Friends from church have me draw up lists of books for them to read. I think they should start calling me "Marian"! (you know, that librarian from "The Music Man"? ;) Even if you don't like to read, I may just press you with promises of good books. In all fairness though, I should be able to list a whole catalog of good titles- even the Walkers are hard-pressed to find a book in their house that I have not read. Poor Matthew has been subject to taking my recommendations on faith and reading many things such as "To Have and To Hold", and "Pride and Prejudice", that he mayn't have read without a big, encouraging shove into it. Okay, so having a girl for a cousin can injure your reading list. (But I think he enjoyed them!) I also, though, have roped him into reading "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Ivanhoe", and Sarah has gotten him to read "the Pickwick Papers" by Dickens, so we aren't all girly about it! Anyway, the point of this post, was to describe a rather amusing scene that happened last night. Sarah and I were both in the last throes of very thick books. Sarah is reading "Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens, (731 pages) and I was reading "Lorna Doone" by R.D. Blackmore. (400 some odd pages) She is reading her book on credit, because it is really one I took out of the library to read, but let her read it while I was reading the other. We sat together in the living room. She cast a wary eye upon my reading- only about a 1/4 of an inch to go! Her book is longer than mine...will she finish before I swoop down and grab it from her? We are both feverishly reading. Then Mama wanted to watch "I Love Lucy" with us, so we pause. Mama falls asleep, and we both decide to take our reading up again in our beds. I am savouring the last few pages of "Lorna Doone". Suddenly, she is shot at the altar at her wedding by a wicked, wicked cousin of hers! :0 Horrors! I breathlessly read the part aloud to Sarah, in absolute agony! How on earth could an author kill off his title character? Sarah listens patiently, then waves me off. "I've got to keep reading!" she says. I finish my book in peace, once I learn that Lorna is not really dead, and they have a happy life ever-after! I am satisfied. Sarah is still reading. The time draws nigh midnight. Reluctantly, she lays aside her book, and we go to sleep. I am a good sister and I don't claw the novel out of her hands this morning and read it myself! ;) In fact, Miss Sarah is sitting here beside me with only 1/4 inch (or 3 chapters) to go! Hurrah for literature from the old days when thin books were for babies! Our literary tastes go for Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, Austen, Alcott, Twain, and all those solid 4 inch writers! :) I don't find it too bad to boast of one's family, so think that our only crime perhaps in this post comes from the fact that we simply love to read! -Rachel
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