I'm a bit of a neat freak. I like things clean and tidy and everything in it's place. Because of this I'm fairly ruthless historically when it comes to having a clear out and in my younger years I had no sentimentality about any possessions, even chucking out years worth of Ribbons won at horse riding events.
Thankfully my Mum was wise enough to realise that there should be something left to show for my childhood, and so she kept a few of my favourite books for me (along with a couple of other special keepsakes). Now decades later I've spent many happy hours sharing these books with my children, bringing back happy memories of my own - and creating new ones for my kids.
We finished our latest chapter book recently and the kids having been enjoying rediscovering their picture books and loving the memories that reading back over old books brings. Now aged 9 & 10 they're way past picture book age, but they still love a good story, and the fact that Grumpycorn by Sarah McIntyre (released 2019) is part of our collection is testament to that!
Tonight we enjoyed Grumpycorn once again, and Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, a book that survived my early childhood, and now 50 years later, has been read and re-read with my two more times than i can count, and that i hope survives to be enjoyed with my Grandchildren one day.
When the kids get older it's easy to forget about those favourites of their early years, as you move on to weightier books. But it's a joy to bring them out now and then, and laugh over memories of what they used to love above them, and doing all the voices you used to do.
Picture books are a great way to enjoy a story together when you're short on time. They very often include a life lesson or moral to the story that's worth remembering, and the illustrations within mean that the reader gets their listener snuggled up close, all the better to see the pictures :) Picture books deliver so much; they are timeless little caches of joy, warmth and family - to be enjoyed again and again over decades and generations.