Literature And Lil Uns

Today I had dinner with my little cousins and uncle at my Titi's house, we had Chinese food from my favorite takeout place and it was all very pleasant. Post chow down while my uncle was fixing my Titi's freezer and she was standing by chatting to him I found myself talking with the kiddos about reading. They went on and on about their schools reading point system, which had me more than a bit confused and then rather annoyed after they'd explained it to me. So my cousins are in middle school and have never had the love of reading my siblings and I do, generally it's something I believe to be do to extremely different parenting styles and the public school system sucking any joy from books; the system at their school isn't very helpful either, I can get having them write out things for reading comp and all that but they fact that they can only read books from their schools very limited library ticks me off to no end. I've often talked books with the younger of the cousins who is 11, I've planned numerous trips to the library over the years that have never panned out, I've loaned her books she never ended up even opening, it's seems everything has been tried...So today when she suggested I make her a list of books to check out over Spring break I was dancing on the inside, as soon as I got home I was scouring my bookshelves to find anything that might be of interest to her. And yes, I could just loan them to her but that child is famous for loosing things only for them to turn up in pieces six months later. Besides, a trip to the library never hurt anyone. Sadly despite her interest I'm not certain that once I hand over the list she'll ever read anything on it, as I said, this isn't my first attempt to get her into reading. It infuriates me how children these days can't stand to read because they're so burned out from school; reading is one of the great joys of life, it's an escape from this world and all its problems and that's something I think it's very important to have at that age. From middle school onward people are awful and life can be pretty grueling so being able to have a form of levity at ones fingertips that expands the mind instead of damaging it like some other things kids can pick up is something I am a great believer in. Another thing I talked with them about is not feeling bad for liking things because they think they're too old for them. When I was their age I read books about ponies and princesses and though I thoroughly enjoyed them I was very embarrassed by what people would think seeing me reading such things. A few years later when I started watching Avatar I was similarly ashamed. Recently however I realized that looking back it was perfectly reasonable to be reading certain books and watching certain shows when I did because 11 is a whole heck of a lot younger than I thought it was. That's basically what I told my cousins. Nowadays I still watch cartoons and read books about princesses and find myself caring a whole lot less what people think, just because I'm in my teens doesn't mean I have to watch CW shows and only read John Green novels, I don't want to look back and wished I'd gotten into something sooner and not cared if  people thought I was stupid for liking it. My eyes were opened to a stunning truth, people don't really care that much about these things, and if they're ragging on you because you like lighthearted stuff you don't need that kinda crap in your life. Doing things like rereading Paddington Bear and watching House Of Mouse on Youtube with my brother on occasion make my happy meter fill up, and if that thing reaches E I stop running. The point I'm trying to make is that you should never feel you have to apologize for liking something that makes you happy, gang. As long as it's not anything bad you just keep doing your thing. That's gonna be it for now, guys. Until next time. Much Love, Gabby