I got into interlibrary loans while reading my way through Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. My library system only had the first few graphic novels. I spoke with the librarian on duty about the later graphic novels, and her response was to pull an interlibrary loan form out of a drawer.

My partner just renewed an overdue DVD yesterday. We owe our library $6. Oh, the shame.* When I evangelize about how much money the library saves us, usually at least one person in the crowd looks regretful and says, “I can’t go to the library. I have fines.” Life happens and so do overdue books! Here’s how not to get traumatized by your fines—and how to avoid getting them in the first place.

This week, I’m going to show you how to max out your reading enjoyment, cut your Amazon bills, and get onto a first-name basis with your local librarian.

Last summer I decided, "We do a lot of reading anyway. Why don't we join some summer reading programs and get the rewards?" I asked Junior at the end of the summer if it had been worth it. Mouth full of free Chipotle burrito, he nodded an enthusiastic yes!

What is it about dragons? We read the My Father’s Dragon series last year. Junior now recommends it to his friends with the panache of a true enthusiast. At present, we’re two books into the How To Train Your Dragon series here, and we’re all completely captivated by Toothless, the hero’s small, lazy, crochety, and almost completely talentless dragon. In this week’s blog post, Michele Braun discusses her family's favorite (literary) dragons. Do you have a favorite?

Writing a post about Easter books has proven to be simultaneously much more intellectual and much more difficult than I had originally thought it would be. Researching developmentally appropriate Easter reading for younger children (Popsugar, thoughtco, and beinglds feature some good lists of Easter books for children), I found at least four distinct categories of Easter books--and an intriguing running subtheme about finding yourself as an artist.

Children’s series chapter books are a three-generation thing around here. Right now, our house looks like it’s hosting a Magic Tree House Festival. I, personally, loved the The Three Investigators and Nancy Drew. My mom still rhapsodizes about Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series. We’re in good company—turns out that Supreme Court justices have a thing about Nancy Drew! Which ones are your favorites?

When my mother was a little girl, everyone had a “party piece.” This was pre-television, and at a large party everyone would take part in the entertainment by singing the crowd a song, reciting some poetry, doing a dance, or something else that they’d memorized to amuse a crowd. I say it’s time to bring this tradition back—who wouldn’t want to be in the audience when the next Bob Dylan sings “Accentuate the Positive?”

How many of you check out the bookshelves when you go over to other people’s houses? Our friends the Hambrechts’ bookshelves are overflowing! They love to read and they love to share their favorite books—they’ve gifted Junior with everything from a Pecos Bill compendium to D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths. When I heard that Kate disliked Put Me in the Zoo so much that she threw it across the room, I had to know more. . . so I asked her to write a guest post.

When I wrote about our Book Advent Calendar in December, we were only four books in. Below are reviews for the rest of the books. The real surprise for me was that we didn't finish the reading list--there were a lot of activities during the month which kept us out so late that we had to skip bedtime reading. I asked for reviews of the month's reading post-Christmas, and both Junior and my partner said that they want to do the Book Advent Calendar again next year.