The English language is a funny thing, especially when “breaking-in” something is what you do to prevent something from breaking. But there it is.

I love hardcover books. The quality of paper the printers use is generally of a higher quality, and the bindings tend to last longer. But a good binding will only last if it is treated properly. When you get a new book, you never want to open it straight down the middle when you first handle it. Doing this can damage or even crack the spine and ruin your new book. Instead, you want to ease it open, little by little.

When I got a new set of leather bound scriptures for my birthday a few years ago, it came with a little set of instructions on how to condition its new binding. I asked my son to help demonstrate how it’s done with the new collection of Sherlock Holmes he got for Christmas.

Here we go.

Start with your book, flat on a table, with the spine down. Like this:

Open the front cover and lay it down on the table. Then open the book to the twentieth page or so, and smooth the pages down with your hand. Nice and gently. Don’t force anything.

Do the same thing on the other side.

Go back to the first side, and turn down another ten or twenty pages, and smooth them down. Repeat with the other side. Keep going with another twenty pages, and alternate back and forth between the front and the back.

When you reach the middle, you’re done. Close the book, open to the first page, and start reading. Now that, my friends, is elementary.

While I was posting this, I was happy to find similar instructions from the bookbinder William Matthews.

I guess it’s been ages, but awhile back, I asked my readers on facebook what kinds of posts they would like to see more of. My good friend from high school mentioned I should do a post on our favorite baby books. Since a lot of our board books have been lost over the years, while others have been chewed to death, the kids and I put this list together of all the favorite books we can remember.

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And now I will confess something I am very much ashamed of: I have never read Jane Eyre.

I am now pausing while I can feel your virtual rotten tomatoes smashing into my face. I am sorry. I have never read it. Or at least, not the whole thing. Surely I read enough of it in tenth grade English to get by with a quickie book report. But that’s all.

And is it sad of me that I only now want to read it because the new movie looks so good? And I know Rochester is supposed to be on the homely side, but I have to say, he’s the reason I’m so excited to go see the movie. I suppose if I invest a couple of hours into a movie, I want Rochester to be at least ambiguously handsome. I guess I just like eye candy.

Here is the trailer:

I want to squeeze in reading it before I break down and watch the movie.

And so, this will be our book club book for June.

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Our new favorite picture book around here was a Christmas gift to my son. Splat the Cat, by Rob Scotton, is about a kitty who overcomes his fears on his first day of cat school. With brilliant and funny illustrations, it is the kind of golden children’s book that families will want to read again and again.

But in case you’re still not convinced, this is what my son had to say:

me: Tell me about Splat the Cat.

CKR: Um, he rides a silly looking bike.

me: Why does he ride a silly looking bike?

CKR: Because it’s an old fashioned book.

me: What’s the book about?

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by SRR

When I saw this book I thought it was like any other book you would see.  I was at my mom’s friend’s house and I felt I was going to die of boredom.  I asked my mom (the sophistimom) for something to do and her friend pulled a book from their shelf and it was The Name of this Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch.

There are supposed to be five books in the Secret Series, and I’ve read the first three. The first is of course The Name of this Book Is Secret, then the second is If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late. They are followed by This Book Is Not Good For You, and This Isn’t What It Looks Like. The last book, which comes out on September 21st, will be called You Have to Stop This.

Now let’s get to the story.

Cassandra, a 12 year old survivalist stumbles across a dead magician’s Symphony of Smells, a box of little vials that contain different smells in them. She teams up with Max-Ernest to find out clues.  They discover the dead magician’s hidden notebook and get tied up fighting for the gift of immortality.  Each book is associated with a different sense; the first ties in with smell. The most recent one I read, This Book Is Not Good For You, is all about taste. Particularly chocolate. Which brings us to revealing the name of the secret sandwich, which we posted a few days ago.

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Each one of my kids had a party in school for Dr. Seuss’s birthday. The two in elementary even got to dress in their PJs and read books all day.

Last week, my oldest son played him in the school wax museum. It was so cute—all the fifth graders had done a report on one of the fifty states, and then had to play an important person from that state. Each one of them dressed up, and struck a pose at their seat until someone would press a fake button on their desk.

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. . . then Robert Sabuda is one because, because, because, because, because . . . because of the wonderful books he does!

I can’t believe I’ve never mentioned them before.

I bought my first Robert Sabuda book several years ago after watching a little segment on Martha Stewart Living about his Wizard of Oz pop-up book. Since that time, he has brought pop-up books to a whole new level. We have a small collection of his titles—The Night Before Christmas, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Each one is mind-boggling.

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I don’t know why we’ve never done this before on sophistimom—it seems so obvious. Of course we need a book club!!

Our first book for the club will be Matched by the lovely Ally Condie.

Here’s what it’s about:

Cassia lives in a world where nearly everything is decided for her: what she eats, how she sleeps, where she works. She is even told whom she is to marry.

At her matching banquet, she sees the face of her best friend, and everything seems perfect. A peaceful life stretches out before her.

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Thank you to everyone who entered the Ramona giveaway! Random.org has cleverly selected Natalie H. So, congratulations, Natalie! You’ll be going to see Ramona and Beezus this summer!  If you are Natalie H., please leave a comment on this post, and I will get that prize to you right away!

And now, for another announcement!  How many of you saw Toy Story 3 last weekend? Well, we saw it, and it was fantastic (aside from the fact that a man—with lots of facial hair—told me he was a little kid when the first Toy Story came out, and made me feel old, since I wrote my junior year undergraduate research paper on Toy Story when it came out!).

But what I was really excited about during that movie was . . . can you guess? The trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader!! Now, this is important, everyone. I love those Narnia movies.  They make me happy. And we’ll all be very sad if they don’t make another one, so make sure you go and see it in December.  See it 10 times, even! And tell everyone you know about it.  Tweet it from the rooftops!  In case you haven’t seen the trailer yet, here’s a quick look:

Now, I have no idea why all four Pevensies make an appearance in there, but I am not complaining. You know how I feel about King Peter. And did you see Ben Barnes? I’ll be grinning the entire movie—yum!

Comments to this Giveaway are now closed. Thank you for all your entries.  I will announce the winner on Monday. Come back then to learn more about a cookie contest on my other blog.

My seven-year-old learned to love reading this year, and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me.

Sadly, my mother couldn’t say that about me when I was young. Though I loved certain books here and there, reading never ranked high on the list of things I wanted to do until I was a grown-up. I was a worried my little first grader was headed in the same direction when she got off to a rough start this year.

For the first few months of first grade, she was the new kid in school and felt like the only kid with parents getting a divorce amongst a sea of happy families. She had trouble holding her pencil right and getting her homework done. That was why, in February, when she picked up Superfudge and read it cover to cover in about a week, I was ecstatic. She read most of Blume’s books in that series, and then turned to tackle a 500 page anthology of classic children’s tales. I can thank a patient first grade teacher for this, and a school that works hard to instill a love of reading—not by pushing deadlines and homework and book reports, but by letting each child be free to choose the books they are naturally drawn to.

A couple weeks ago, I saw the new trailer for the Ramona and Beezus movie, and then remembered how I actually enjoyed the Ramona books when I was young, and hoped my daughter would as well. She finished finished the first book in about a week, and now can’t wait to read the next and  see the movie.

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